A Need to be Hungry, the Reprise

June 17, 2008

In my previous post, I spoke of the physical lack of hunger I’ve been assailed with since last week. I will now talk about the more psychological one: a need to be hungrier for life.

And I mean that in the figurative sense.

Have you ever seen a cat taking a very erect stance as it anticipates for something? An unsuspecting mouse comes out and, as quickly as a blink, this cat starts pouncing on the mouse which has now become a prey? That cat’s intensity and ferocity are what I need. Right now, I feel less like a cat and more like a sheep that’s become enervated from eating wilted grasses.

Where this problem is most prominent is with my attitude about writing. No, I don’t intend to renounce this hobby - I’m actually reading a book about writing, again - but my interest with it needs a spike. I’ve been feeling rather low these days and the search for inspirations has been fruitless. This is not the same as writer’s block, oh no. Writer’s block is merely being unable to put two words together. Lacking inspiration is being able to write, and yet you feel your writings are soulless, like how every words has no purpose but to increase word counts and to foist an image of intelligence.

To be inspired is to be so hungry, that you just can’t wait to suck up every opportunity to polish your craft, until you let it create something worthy of being called art. I gauge this hunger by looking at my unfinished drafts. There are four. Two of them are short stories about music and a modern day Benjamin Button. One is a collection of new words I’ve learned. The last is a post about a friendship turned sour. On my inspired days, I view these unfinished drafts and I get overwhelmed by a desire to finish them. On days like today, I just shrug them off.

Inspirations are what I need, for in its absence life is a drably colored tapestry that everyone wants to get rid of. Maybe beauty will be returned to life when a change of sceneries comes. Things are looking up though, as next July, my sister will be going to Taiwan, and I just might skip an entire week of work and go meet her there.

PS. For samples of blog posts with thought-provoking formation of words, go visit John Silver’s “The One Rant Machine“. 

Posted by nightdreamer at 4:16 pm | permalink

Previous Comments

Well, what can I say. Just wait for the inspiration you need. In the meantime, don’t force yourself to write if you don’t have something you want to write about.

Ironically, your lack of inspiration inspired you to come up with this post. You were able to express how you feel now eloquently. And I understood easily what you mean. This is not easy to do, you know. And this I think is the yardstick for good writers.

Posted by J at June 17, 2008, 9:08 pm

Aw, bless you for linking my blog so directly. :)

Don’t worry about inspiration, it’ll come along when you stop worrying about it. As someone used to say, if you hold art tightly, it dies, if you hold it lightly, it flies. ;)

Posted by John Silver at June 18, 2008, 9:27 pm

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