When life settings influence your inspiration

There was a time when a bird landing on one leg would prompt a pensive verse, when a drop sliding down a glass of iced water turned into an ocean under my magic pen, when an elderly couple holding hands summoned the avid poetess within. 

Today I stare at the fan. At a blank page, at empty walls that would’ve been filled with quotes and colorful visuals. An empty space used to send me searching for unique artistic expressions to grace the void that surrounds me today. My foggy brain and anxious hands can’t come to an agreement. But it’s about time an executive decision is made by, I’m afraid, my subconscious and my emotions — they want self-expression, they want to be heard. 

Days when I don’t feel like myself tend to shrink me. And I stay there for as long as life pushes me to. I become less of a writer and more of a torment to myself. Tormented by my own desire to bring back my fantasies, dreams, and hopes alive again. But the thing is that just like the setting of a story influences a character’s development, real-life settings can influence your mood, your views, your ability and availability, too — all of which are needed to artistically create something effectively.

I’ve said times before that day jobs can kill inspiration when the work is unrelated to your craft, and when it takes up most of your time on Earth. I’m still in there though, somewhere in the shell of the vibrant person I once was and loved being. That person checks in regularly, sporadically coming back, but never staying full time anymore because priorities have inevitably changed — and with adulting come great responsibilities. I don’t want to have to make a choice; I want to do it all, but as Sylvia Plath once put it, I am horribly limited. 

Luckily, I am the writer of my own story. Every time the setting of my story becomes dull and uninspiring, I timely remember that I can always play with it, I can change it a bit.