BE INSPIRED BY SEEKING INSPIRATION

To be inspired you have to seek it?

What about seeing something accidentally, or unexpected, that hits just right?

For some it’s a sunset, a beautiful sunset, the most incredible sunset since the night before.

Call it inspirational, and you like it because it makes you feel inspired.

Then what? Drinks? Take me for example:

I’ve seen the sunset, the sunrise, and the sun at mid-day.

But it’s the clouds that make the big difference.

Unlike the bare planets, huge spheres uncovered by weather, like the moon, earth is good for human habitation.

We have a friendly atmosphere and we’re all the better for it.

Otherwise we’d be baked into the dirt and blowing in the wind.

But, with clouds, we’re more than that.

 

How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?

 

Inspiration Needs To Find You Looking For It

There’s the sunset in all of it’s blazing glory, maybe a little obscured by trees, or buildings, or clouds, but you know it’s there.

And it fills you up like nothing you’ve ever felt, and you wish with all of your heart that everyone you know could feel what you feel, that everyone they know could feel it, too.

Some people even wish everyone in the world living under that same sun could have a life where they could pause in their day, absorb the sunset just for themselves, and carry the calm.

If you’re ever been in a group for a sunset moment, everyone has a similar face of appreciation, togetherness, and caring about that feeling, that shared feeling.

What happens next? Back to whatever was going on. It was a sunset. There’ll be another one tomorrow.

Some take a moment to lock it in, to grade against other sunsets in person and pictures.

Instead of a small memory of a nice time with nice people, it’s a monumental moment to share with the world.

And there’s nothing the matter with that.

 

How many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn’t see?

 

Be Inspired For Others

Even in my baby boomer blogger dotage I look for inspiration more than I look to inspire.

Isn’t making it to over seventy inspiring enough? I think so.

I look at people my age and more and see their lifetime pass before my eyes.

Were they good kids, good parents, good adults, good workers, good elders?

Based on my travels and the stories I’ve heard, I lean toward the good, and why not?

Benefit of the doubt, innocent until proven guilty, due process and all, is more about looking for inspiration in the basic goodness of the human condition.

I can see it, even with the clouds. People grow up and treat others the way they were treated.

But, something happens when older men, people who know better, who should know better, who do know better, decide something is missing in their lives.

They don’t inspire others the way they used to, they don’t have as many of the inspirational moments where people inspired by them go into a frenzy of love and fear in their presence.

Maybe it’s their fading innate appeal, their hyper-masculine appearance is drooping, the feeling that being a master of the universe isn’t enough?

Here they are, at the top of their game, the peak of their profession, the only alpha-male in their life and dominating everyone they know, and like our atmosphere, everyone is better for it.

They’re not the same man they used to be, but here they are, and they hear whispers.

Not from the aging ex-wive’s they jettisoned for updated versions, not from the army of first-divorcee sharks circling him and his ilk in their pond, and certainly not from serious young women looking for foundation blocks to match theirs and build a meaningful life together.

Instead, they hear whispers about a guy, a house, an airplane, an island.

Whispers about power, protection, participation and it fills them up like the sunsets of their younger days.

It continues until the whispers grow louder, and louder, until ‘oh my god can someone turn it down?’

 

PS:

Those who acted on the whispers can turn it down.

The Duke of York has been stripped of his military affiliations and his royal patronages, Buckingham Palace confirmed today.

 

PSS:

If you’ve seen the face of sunset-bliss in a group, you’ve seen common expressions.

It’s the opposite face of those accused of following through on the whispers they heard, the face of those who said they didn’t but did.

It’s the face of ‘what did I do?’

And they have to answer.