Ready, set, action!

by Kim

 "We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing.

Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action."

~ Frank Tibolt

Oh boy, where to start . . . 

I can only say that in the last few months I have found this to be so true, only I didn't realize it until just now upon reading this quote.

With my son's illness, my normal activities and points of action have been severely interrupted and replaced with doctors appointments, hospital visits and testing. On a weekly basis for the last . . .ten weeks. Any time left has been filled with feeling tired and overwhelmed.

I have found it hard to maintain the same level of inspiration when my child is battling a chronic disease. And my notebook, full of previously inspired writing and ideas, just hasn't felt right for sharing when it's not what is in my heart at the moment.

But I'm pretty sure that while I have been stressed and worried and feeling like I have nothing in the way of ideas that my mind has still been busy at work. Still taking everything in. Waiting. For just the right time to let it go. 

There is a saying that nothing comes from nothing, and if that's true then something must come from a whole lot of stuff that builds one idea on top of another one when we aren't watching. When we are too tired to pay attention. Until one day it overflows into our thought process at just the moment it's supposed to.

In fact I'm sure of it . . . 

It happened a couple of weeks ago when Kim Klassen's Texture Tuesday prompt was black and white (with maybe even a hint of color). And to be honest, even though I may not be as completely engaged, it has been important to me to still stay  "connected" on-line as I feared I might just drop into a big black hole, which would be so easy to do and harder to find my way back. I have been so amazed and overwhelmed by the support of so many.

Anyway, as I started to think about black and white I thought even more about all the shades of grey in between and how it related to photography and to life and the words just spilled out spontaneously and I saw and felt a glimpse of my writing again (if interested you can read it here). Maybe I wasn't completely lost after all..

"Action always generates inspiration." Yes, the act of engaging is what eventually creates the inspiration we all seek in our various crafts, in life really. Had I waited to pick up my camera because I felt inspired, it would have sat in my bag for the last ten weeks. I've been hard on myself because I've wanted to do it all, to keep up . . . but really, who does it all? I think that is something "they" made up for TV viewing purposes ( darn that June Cleaver ).

So I think the moral of the story quote here is that I am realizing I have more control over my inspiration than I thought.. . .that sometimes there may be a delayed reaction, but I only need to put one foot in front of the other to find it.

Of course this has me thinking about what "inspiration" IS . . . and some questions about art and its audience, hmmm?

 "Man built most Nobly when limitations were their greatest." - Frank Lloyd Wright