Here’s the deal with inspiration. Inspiration is lovely, but it isn’t reliable. It arrives unexpectedly at odd hours in odd places, but you can’t rely on it and it rarely provides you with enough fuel to carry you through to completion. If you wait for inspiration to arrive before you begin, you may never begin. And if you give up when it disappears, you will give up too soon.

The most important thing we must do as a creators of beautiful and provocative things is begin – and begin again. The only thing that is reliable is our choice to do what we do – the painting, the script analysis, the sitting at the piano and playing – with or without inspiration – with or without applause and shiny rewards.

I was making my coffee this morning and I was thinking about how fickle inspiration can be and about how distracting ambition can be. (I blame yoga practice. I’m burning off some karma.) This got me thinking about my story – about how I lost my dreams for over nine years and the journey I have been on to recover and reconnect with those dreams. Somehow I am blessed and cursed with a lot of ambition. For years I tried to ignore my dreams because I lost my inspiration and I had become completely exhausted by my own ambition.

These thoughts rambled on in my brain throughout my morning routine until I found myself brushing my teeth and thinking about the story of Icarus. (This is how my brain works when I’m burning off karma.) If you aren’t familiar with Icarus, you can read his bio here. I’ve been impressed by the images in this myth since I was in high school. I took three years of Latin in high school. No, I didn’t go to a private Catholic school. I went to one of two public high schools in Abilene, TX. where we happened to be blessed with an inspired and inspiring Latin teacher who not only taught us conjugation and pronunciation – she also told us stories, myths, legends and history. When I first heard the myth of Daedalus and Icarus, I was struck by the pain and helplessness Daedalus must have felt as he watched his son plunge to his death. That’s usually the actor’s response to story – to put yourself in the character’s shoes so to speak. The lessons of the Icarus story were: listen to your father, don’t get carried away, and don’t aim to high otherwise you will fall. Usually it’s considered to be a warning to not aim too high in life. As far as I’m concerned this interpretation is kind of a life-suck, so I went in a different direction with it.

The thing that struck me this morning was that flying or falling is a choice. Daedalus, Icarus’s father, arrived safely at his destination. Icarus perished. Creative dreams are the same way, they can arrive safely at their destination or they can die. They die if we only act when we are inspired or if we get too distracted by the shiny rewards and applause. Creative work is work. It requires the persistent willingness to fail and begin again. It requires repetition, evaluation and revision – and, if we choose to go this route, packaging and marketing.

Yes, flashes of bright inspiration are absolutely delicious. They give us the sensation of soaring. We feel giddy with excitement about how brilliant this inspired project will be. We feel as if we are being lifted out of the daily grind by the very air around us. And, as we soar with our head in the clouds, we can imagine the applause and the magnificence of the thing that will be. But, in a flash, that inspiration can melt and leave us stranded above an open sea and then – we must choose.

Do we let ourselves fly closer to the ground where we can do what is necessary to arrive? Or do we let ourselves plummet figuring if the inspiration is no longer there then the dream wasn’t a worthy one? And so we let it die. I went that route once – and it’s not fun.

My plea to all the artists and dreamers out there is to begin with or without inspiration and to do that again tomorrow and the next day and the day after that. Ignore the shiny rewards that may or may not come and simply immerse yourself in the action of creating the thing you imagine. If you fall – it is never to late to get up and begin again. Most likely this will take some courage and guts, but at any time, anywhere, and in any circumstances – you can begin. Somehow it is possible. Since I’m into myths today – what the heck, I’ll say it – my love for theatre re-emerged from the ashes after I had completely burned myself out. My dreams were nothing but dust for nine years. Nine! Easily going on ten. It’s never too late – unless you don’t begin today. If, like me, you are someone who swore off your dreams years ago, you know – they never really die. Do they? So let’s fly!

Here are some questions to explore:

1. What am I waiting for?
2. What will happen if it never arrives?
3. If everything were perfect in my life: my family, my home, my body – what would I let myself do that I am not letting myself do now?
4. If I came face to face with my lost dream, what would I say to it? What do I need it to know?
5. What does my dream need me to know?
6. What are the shiny rewards that distract me from my process?
7. Would I go after my dream even if I knew there were no shiny rewards to be had?
8. What is one thing I could do today to begin? (It doesn’t have to be a big thing – but it has to be today.)

Tags: Creative Process, Creativity, Dreams