Yesterday, I posed the question on Twitter: “what is inspiration and what inspires you?” I was confused when I didn’t receive very many responses, because it seemed like a good question to me, and one that a lot of bloggers would want to weigh in on. But as I laid (yes, I did have to look up the proper form of that word) in bed searching “blog ideas” on Pinterest, I realized that as good as the question may be, the answers probably wouldn’t fit into 140 characters.
Inspiration is a huge, all-encompassing word that doesn’t fit into the four syllables it holds. It’s an idea, like faith or freedom that keeps the world turning and society growing, but that we can’t quite define because it’s so vast and so completely different for everyone.
It did leave me asking myself though: what is inspiration? If it is such a huge idea, what does it mean to me, and where do I find it?
Inspiration is something I’ve never truly nailed down. It’s an abstract idea that is tailored to every part of speech: to inspire, to be inspirational, to be inspired, to find inspiration… It’s something I know I find every day, the motivation behind my getting out of bed each morning, behind my writing a new post here every day, behind every picture I take and word I write and interview I go to. It is my life force, and I believe it is yours too.
Even the dictionary – my source for anything I can’t quite get a grasp on – left me wondering more. Literally, inspiration is our life force, what keeps us going each day and waking each morning.
inspiration |ˌinspəˈrāSHən|
noun
2 the drawing in of breath; inhalation.
• an act of breathing in; an inhalation.
So how do you define something like that? The force that keeps all of us growing and changing; how is that something you nail down in 140 characters or less?
If you could, how would you try to define inspiration? I’m going to be trying over the next couple of months, by breaking it down into manageable pieces.