What inspires you?

The conversation continues in an email:

How do you sort out your thoughts? Journal, taking a walk, handheld recorder?

First of all, thanks for the questions. The mere process of answering them helps me understand more about myself. Which is a healthy thing. I hope!

How I sort out my thoughts:

Well, in this day and age, I’ve taken advantage of the Web and electronic tools. At its core, it’s really just the same thing as keeping a journal, or, in my case, a more accurate analogy would be Post-It notes. My blog is, of course, public, and much of my thoughts are ultimately published there. But for what you’re asking about (i.e. the actual behind-the-scenes organization, sorting, developing, etc. of more private yet-to-be-developed ideas), I’ve set up a private online bulletin board for myself using phpBB (http://phpbbb.org). It’s software you’ve seen before. An online forum, with separate threads to facilitate separate conversations. Only in my case, it’s private, on my site in a back door, used only by me. Using that phpBB architecture, I am able to make note of initial ideas (starting a thread, if you will), and then I can go back to it a day or a year later and Comment on it in the thread, to myself, as the idea evolves into something else. I’ve developed lots of my stories this way; stories that are more complicated than a one-take jam. One specific way of using the boards for this is when I’m writing a novel. I’ve got one forum for each character, one forum for each chapter, and so forth. That, of course, evolves, and some of my threads then get edited and moved to fresh new threads. Like, say, I’ll have a thread called “Chapter 1 Jam”, and bang out a draft for Chapter 1. That will, of course, change as I go, but I get it in. Then, for editing, I’ll use the Chapter 1 Jam thread as a starting point for my next draft of it, like, say, “Chapter 1 Jam 2”. The goal in that case would be to eventually create a thread called, cleanly, “Chapter 1”, which is the polished product of all the jams that led up to it.

When I’m in the hills with the dogs, I’ve sent text messages to my email address, and have even called my land line and left messages on my answering machine. Those captured thoughts will ultimately be organized in the bulletin board that I mention. I’ve written things on bar napkins, my hands, whatever. But all those notes are temporary, and I will find myself getting home and rushing to my bulletin board on the Web and post it for future polishing.

Oh, and I email things to myself all the time. If you don’t have Gmail, get an account now. It just works better than anything else; namely, you don’t sort your mail in folders. It works like Google, where you simply rely on Search.

And lastly, the advent of Twitter has changed my life, and completely taken stream-of-conscious to another dimension. Its existence literally encourages thoughts, and keeps that stream flowing. It’s a good thing, but can be annoying to a few of the unassuming souls that I happen to cc — with friendly intentions — after six or seven coldies.

Where do you grab inspiration from? Conversations, watching television, etc?

That’s a difficult one to pinpoint, since I’m not very proactive in my “search for inspiration”. I don’t devour fiction, movies, music, etc. There are very few things — particularly in pop culture — that I would call myself a “fan” of. I do, however get immensely inspired by things when I least expect it. Conversations, mathematical things, coincidences, people I see, signs I read, articles and columns, thoughts that occur to me, sunsets, dogs chasing rabbits, wind in my hair, the ocean, the sky, the smell of coffee, and so on.

And I’m a huge fan of humor. THERE IS NOTHING BETTER. I love to laugh. That doesn’t mean I sit around and watch Comedy Central, but I do tend to notice the humor and irony in things. And nothing tickles me harder than a classic random uncontrived quote overheard in a social situation. And I love great jokes.

Would you consider yourself a “reactionary” or a “visionary” kind of person?

Wow. I don’t know. Probably reactive by default, I think. I’ve learned in recent years that one of my natural weaknesses is to be to comfortable with the status quo. I tend to resist change. I find it psychologically tasking. Change makes me uncomfortable, and I think a result of that trait is that I can be a passive person. So I suppose I’m reactive in that sense, as opposed to proactive. I’m not a “go-getter”, so to speak. But it’s something I’m trying to be aware of and improve on.

On the other hand, I am what one may consider a visionary. I see things others don’t see. I notice things others don’t notice. I find relevance in things others couldn’t care less about.

Have you ever been to a baseball game or football game in a stadium filled with people and thought about how every single person in that place has their own life, thoughts, goals, problems, personality? I always look at some random person and wonder…what are they thinking about right now? You ever do that? Trips me out.

All the time! Not only do I think of random people’s individual characteristics, but I also let my mind drift to the reality that, for every person you see, there are two others!

I got your email while I was stuck in traffic on the way home. I just started looking at all the people in all the cars around me. Unfortunately, the morbid thought that comes to mind is that in 80 years…80% or more of all those people will be dead and will be replaced by new people that will probably be thinking the exact same thing.

Never thought of it that way, but I do now. It was probably just a matter of time until I thought of it before you.

Another little “thought nugget” I’ve had over the weekend is that everything we see…is of the earth. Cars, buildings, street signs, computers, etc. We call these things “man made.” Of course man did assemble these things, but they are all essentially….EARTH. I don’t know….just a thought.

Trippy! Hearing ya loud and clear, little dolphin dreamer. 😉

=j