Wisdom is a complex human trait, characterized by a marriage of the intellect with the emotions, and put into action. By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest. [attributed to Confucius] The saddest aspect of life right now is that science…
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Value for Thursday of Week 36 in the season of Fulfillment
Taking Inspiration
Sometimes creativity gets a boost, like a car being jump-started, or a breath of air to restore life. Those moments are called inspirational.
- When your Daemon is in charge, do not try to think consciously. Drift, wait, and obey. [Rudyard Kipling]
“Inspiration marks moments of peak functioning that integrate the hedonic well-being of the primitive creature, the eudaimonic well-being of the social creature, and the self-transcendent well-being of the cultural creature.” “Inspiration implies motivation, which is to say that inspiration involves the energization and direction of behaviour . . . ; however, inspiration is evoked, rather than initiated directly through an act of will.”
“Inspiration has a long history, originally thought of as coming from divine or supernatural forces. . . . Perhaps due to the mystical connotations associated with the term, scientists haven’t touched the concept– until recently. In recent years, fascinating studies on inspiration have emerged . . . These studies allow us to take something as seemingly elusive as inspiration and understand its operation and impact on other important psychological outcomes. As it turns out, inspiration matters.” “Brain-level explanations of an inspiration episode can . . . be integrated with explanations at other levels of analysis to produce a richer and more holistic understanding of inspiration.” “A better understanding of the biological basis of inspiration will illuminate the process through which creative ideas “fire the soul,” such that individuals are compelled to transform ideas into products and solutions that may benefit society.”
“Inspiration plays an important role for personal and professional growth and development . . .” “Inspiration allows you to transcend beyond what you previously thought were your limits.” “Inspiration acts as a compass, guiding us through challenges and dark moments. It can ignite hope, facilitate change, and provide a sense of direction.” “. . . being inspired in both positive and negative emotions is positively related to approach coping strategies in adverse situations . . .”
Real
True Narratives
- Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin, Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Fight Terrorism and Build Nations . . . One School at a Time (Viking Penguin, 2006).
- Greg Mortenson, Stones into Schools: Promotimg Peace with Books, Not Bombs, in Pakistan and Afghanistan (Viking Adult, 2009).
- George Dawson and Richard Glaubman, Life Is So Good: One Man's Extraordinary Journey Through the 20th Century and How He Learned to Read at the Age of 98 (Penguin, 2001).
- Kate Harris, Lands of Lost Borders: A Journey on the Silk Road (Dey Street Books, 2018): this travel book was inspired by the author’s childhood fascination with Marco Polo.
- Claire Messud, Kant’s Little Prussian Head and Other Reasons Why I Write: An Autobiography in Essays (Norton, 2020): “Messud makes the point that every relationship we’ve had and every residence that we’ve inhabited survives in the scrapbooks that constitute ourselves: We leave them far behind and never leave them at all.”
- Michele Harper, The Beauty in Breaking: A Memoir (Riverhead, 2020): “Michele Harper was a teenager with a learner’s permit when she volunteered to drive her older brother, John, to an emergency room in Silver Spring, Md., so he could be treated for a bite wound on his left thumb. The gash came from Harper’s father’s teeth.”
- Kevin Birmingham, The Sinner and the Saint: Dostoevsky and the Gentleman Murderer Who Inspired a Masterpiece (Penguin, 2021): “. . . Dostoyevsky wasn’t the schematic storyteller his critics make him out to be, mapping out some grand ideologies and then deducing the details. He usually started from bits of conversation, a person’s voice, a memorable image.”
- Kate Beaton, Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands (Drawn and Quarterly, 2022): “In 2005, Kate Beaton was 21, with a brand-new degree in history and anthropology, student loans she said felt like a foot on her neck, and few job prospects. Around her home in Cape Breton, a picturesque, wooded island in Nova Scotia, the joke was that everyone was 'on pogie,' she said — on unemployment. So she headed west, to the tar sand fields of northern Alberta, one of the world’s most environmentally destructive oil operations, where workers lived in barracks-like camps and men vastly outnumbered women. Her experience there . . . gave her an insider’s view into a place and piece of Canadian history few outsiders ever see.”
- Lyndall Gordon, The Hyacinth Girl: T.S. Eliot’s Hidden Muse (W.W. Norton & Company, 2022), “draws on a . . . cache of letters from the poet to Emily Hale, an American actress and drama teacher with whom he had a long, impassioned, largely epistolary entanglement. Eliot met Hale in Boston through a cousin when they were teenagers, and she became his 'hyacinth girl' ('The Waste Land') as well as his 'Lady of silences' and his 'unread vision in the higher dream' ('Ash Wednesday').”
- Charles King, Every Valley: The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times That Made Handel’s “Messiah” (Doubleday, 2024): “We are reminded that Handel was alive and composing in the England of Pope, Swift, Defoe, Fielding, Newton, Bonnie Prince Charlie; of smallpox and syphilis, public hangings and the longstanding dispute between the Catholic Stuarts and the Protestant Hanoverians. We are plunged into the hectic mayhem of London life, with the slave trade a sinister backdrop for an economy that kept class distinctions frozen, the nobility in comfort and commoners struggling to stay fed.”
- Ian Leslie, John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs (Celadon Books, 2025) “explores the way two extraordinarily gifted young men combined and exchanged their gifts while inspiring, challenging, teaching and learning from each other.”
Talents, affirmed: a young man in Korea
Technical and Analytical Readings
Photographs
Documentary and Educational Films
Imaginary
Fictional Narratives
- Most of the adventures recorded in this book really occurred; one or two were experiences of my own, the rest those of boys who were schoolmates of mine. Huck Finn is drawn from life; Tom Sawyer also, but not from an individual--he is a combination of the characteristics of three boys whom I knew, and therefore belongs to the composite order of architecture. [Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), Preface.]
- The most wonderful fairy tales grow out of that which is reality . . . [Hans Christian Andersen, “The Elderbush”.]
Novels:
- Alice Randall, Black Bottom Saints: Black Bottom Saints (Amistad, 2020): “Ziggy Johnson is just one of the over 50 mostly real life African American artists, doctors, sports figures, activists and behind-the-scenes movers and shakers who populate this novel . . .” about a “caramel Camelot”.
- Vanessa Riley, Island Queen: A Novel (William Morrow, 2021): “Riley’s commitment to restoring these unsung women to their rightful place in the popular imagination was a driving force behind her riveting and transformative new novel.”
From the dark side:
- After the morning in the pillory, the neighbors of Notre-Dame thought they noticed that Quasimodo’s ardor for ringing had grown cool. Formerly, there had been peals for every occasion, long morning serenades, which lasted from prime to compline; peals from the belfry for a high mass, rich scales drawn over the smaller bells for a wedding, for a christening, and mingling in the air like a rich embroidery of all sorts of charming sounds. The old church, all vibrating and sonorous, was in a perpetual joy of bells. One was constantly conscious of the presence of a spirit of noise and caprice, who sang through all those mouths of brass. Now that spirit seemed to have departed; the cathedral seemed gloomy, and gladly remained silent; festivals and funerals had the simple peal, dry and bare, demanded by the ritual, nothing more. Of the double noise which constitutes a church, the organ within, the bell without, the organ alone remained. One would have said that there was no longer a musician in the belfry. Quasimodo was always there, nevertheless; what, then, had happened to him? Was it that the shame and despair of the pillory still lingered in the bottom of his heart, that the lashes of his tormentor’s whip reverberated unendingly in his soul, and that the sadness of such treatment had wholly extinguished in him even his passion for the bells? or was it that Marie had a rival in the heart of the bellringer of Notre-Dame, and that the great bell and her fourteen sisters were neglected for something more amiable and more beautiful? [Victor Hugo, Notre-Dame de Paris, or, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831), Volume II, Book Seventh, Chapter III, “The Bells”.]
Poetry
Before you came things were just what they were:
the road precisely a road, the horizon fixed,
the limit of what could be seen,
a glass of wine was no more than a glass of wine.
With you the world took on the spectrum
radiating from my heart: your eyes gold
as they open to me, slate the color
that falls each time I lost all hope.
With your advent roses burst into flame:
you were the artist of dried-up leaves, sorceress
who flicked her wrist to change dust into soot.
You lacquered the night black.
As for the sky, the road, the cup of wine:
one was my tear-drenched shirt,
the other an aching nerve,
the third a mirror that never reflected the same thing.
Now you are here again—stay with me.
This time things will fall into place;
the road can be the road,
the sky nothing but sky;
the glass of wine, as it should be, the glass of wine.
[Faiz Ahmed Faiz, “Inspiration”]
Give me the instruments of heaven / and I will walk barefoot to my garden house / where I will wait for you
As I sit and wonder what it will be / As I sit and wonder where it will take me, / you caress the keys
A cascade of wonders / A cascde of dreams / Raindrops / Painting the sky with dreams
My being / My existence / My love / My fears / My joy / My hope / A dream / A universe / A soul in three notes
[Ana Luisa Johnson “A Soul in Three Notes” - see the second track on the album "Muses" by William Goldstein, in the Music section.]
Other poems:
- Pablo Neruda, “Poetry”
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “At Midnight Hour”
Music: Composers, artists, and major works
Non-human animals make music. In the truest sense, their music inspires ours. Here are some compositions and albums illustrating the point.
- Sara Minelli & Roderick Chadwick, “Where Song Was Born: Music Inspired by the Birds of Australia” (2022) (67’): Edward Cowie “sets his hand to the birds of Australia . . .”
- Michael Colgrass, The Schubert Birds (1989) (approx. 18-20’): Franz Schubert drew on birdsong in his songs and other works. In this composition, a contemporary composer expanded on this musical history.
- Ruby Colley, “Overheard” (2022) (36’), birdsong and music: “Through his acute powers of observation, (Peter) Kavanagh provided a unique account of Irish life through his poems. It was his perspective on the world that made his work so engaging. Instead of being occupied with the macro lens of history, national politics and identity, he instead turned to the smaller details of his native Inniskeen, capturing the everyday rural and urban life in his own unique style. With Overheard, Ruby Colley takes that inspiration and transforms it into music. She also makes great use of field recordings which, while described as launch pads for her work, are intrinsically linked and inform the listener’s response to the music that follows in the same way it informed her compositions.”
Of his Symphony No. 4 in A major, Op. 90, “Italian” (1833, rev. 1834) (approx. 27-33’) (list of recorded performances), composer Felix Mendelssohn wrote: “This is Italy! And now has begun what I have always thought… to be the supreme joy in life. And I am loving it. Today was so rich that now, in the evening, I must collect myself a little, and so I am writing to you to thank you, dear parents, for having given me all this happiness.” Top recorded performances are conducted by Szell in 1947, Cantelli in 1955, Casals in 1963, Karajan in 1973, Stokowski in 1977, Abbado in 1985, Brüggen in 1991, Flor in 1994, Gardiner in 1998 ***, Heras-Casado in 2016, and Paavo Järvi in 2024.
Ludwig van Beethoven, The Creatures of Prometheus, Op. 43 (1801) (approx. 26-69’) (list of recorded performances), is a ballet based on the Prometheus myth, which is about drawing inspiration from art. “According to legend, Prometheus creates man and woman from stone statues only to discover that they are not humans yet: they lack spirit and soul! Apollo helps Prometheus humanizing the creatures by showing and teaching them music, dance and drama. By learning these beauties humans can be moral, free and happy; as a result make just and harmonious societies.” The ballet is on video with Taneční centrum Praha; and Orchestra del Conservatorio di Bologna. Excellent audio-recorded performances are by Chamber Orchestra of Europe (Harnoncourt) in 1995; Armonia Atenea (Petrou) in 2014; Turku Philharmonic Orchestra (Segerstam) in 2019; and Capella Aquileia (Bosch) in 2022.
Antonio Vivaldi, L’estro Armonico (Harmonic Inspiration), Op. 3 (1711) (approx. 94-120’) (list of recorded performances), is a set of twelve concerti by the Italian baroque master. “. . . the title of Vivaldi's first published collection of concertos, is perhaps best translated as 'Harmonic Fancy' or 'Whim.'” “This set of concertos greatly influenced the evolution of concerto form as it developed north of Italy. But there is an aspect about the set that is difficult to articulate without mentioning something of Vivaldi’s biography.” “ These concertos . . . are products of Vivaldi’s musical positions with the Venetian Ospedale della Pietà, a foundling hospital for abandoned and illegitimate girls. As maestro di violino there (and later, maestro de’ concerti), he taught violin and oversaw the acquisition and care of its string instruments. In addition to his specified duties he also composed music to be performed by the girls of the Pietà . . .” Excellent performances are by Academy of St.-Martin-in-the-Fields (Marriner) in 1973; Academy of Ancient Music (Hogwood) in 1980; Brecon Baroque (Podger) in 2014; Armoniosa in 2019; and Concerto Italiano (Alessandrini) in 2022.
Robert Schumann, Davidsbündlertänze (Dances of the League of David), Op, 6 (1837) (approx. 29-37’) (recordings) is a set of eighteen brief pieces for piano. “In the summer of 1837, and in the face of her father’s implacable opposition to their union, Clara Wieck and Schumann became secretly engaged. The date they chose for their betrothal was 14 August—the name-day of St Eusebius—and it was less than a week later that Schumann began composing his Davidsbündlertänze.” “On September 5, 1839, Schumann wrote to his former professor: ‘She was practically my sole motivation for writing the Davidsbündlertänze, the Concerto, the Sonata and the Novelettes.’ They are an expression of his passionate love, anxieties, longings, visions, dreams and fantasies.”
Other compositions:
- Inspiration comes in many forms, not all of them inspiring. Fascinated with the screen actress Lilian Harvey, Charles Koechlin composed works in her name. Despite several letters from Koechlin, and his wife, about the works, Harvey demonstrated no interest in his efforts or his attention. L’Album de Lilian (approx. 48’): Book I, for soprano, flute, clarinet, piano, Op. 139 (1934) (approx. 19’) (list of recorded performances); Book II, for flute, piano, harpsichord, Ondes Martenot, Op. 149 (1935) (approx. 25’) (list of recorded performances).
- Henri Dutilleux, Timbres, espace, mouvement ou la nuit etoilée (1978) (approx. 20’): the inspiration was Van Gogh’s painting “The Starry Night”.
- Adolf von Henselt, Piano Concerto in F Minor, Op. 16 (1847) (approx. 27-30’): “ . . . the musical and technical challenges for the soloist are equalled only by their effect on the listener, and the whole work has the feel of white-hot inspiration.”
- Giselher Klebe, Nachklang (Echo), Op. 111 (1993) (approx. 16’)
- Mozart Camargo Guarnieri, Piano Concerto No. 1 (1931) (approx. 20’): drawing on Brazilian traditional music, especially from the country’s northeast region
- Ignaz Moscheles composed preludes for two pianos, inspired by and after Bach: [Melodisch-Kontrapunktische Studien (Ten Preludes) from Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, Op. 137b () ()]; Schumann [6 Fugues on B-A-C-H, Op. 60 (1846) ()] and Reinecke [Variationen über eine Sarabande von Bach, Op. 24 (1849)]. These are represented on an album called “Bachiana” (2015) (67’), performed by two pianists, Lucia Huang and Sebastian Euler (Duo d’Accord).
- William Goldstein, “Inspired” (1976) (approx. 11’), commissioned for the United States’ independence bicentennial anniversary
- Thomas Kotcheff, Cadenza (with or without Haydn) (2020) (approx. 16’): Kotcheff’s inspiration was Frederic Rzewski’s Cadenza (2003), based on Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4.
- Howard Hanson, Mosaics (1958) (approx. 12’) was “inspired by the impact that the mosaics in the Cathedral of Palermo had on the spirit of the composer.”
- Ned Rorem, String Quartet No. 4 (1994) (approx. 21’): “Ned Rorem wrote: ‘The ten sections were … inspired by ten pictures of a certain powerful painter, each section titled after a specific canvas.’ We know immediately from the first title that the artist is Pablo Picasso, and from the other titles, we can see the various aspects of his artistic style: the powerful mythology of the minotaur, his own family, cultural items such as circus performers, self-portraits, and death at the end.”
- Kevin Raftery, String Quartet No. 1 (2012) (approx. 16’) “was ‘In memory of Richard Oake, who loved string quartets.’ The composer relates how he had resisted/refrained from writing a string quartet for over 35 years, due to consciousness of the ‘medium’s history of sublime works by great composers’. When his friend died, he decided to write a quartet in his memory.”
- Pablo de Sarasate, Carmen Fantasy, Op. 25 (1881) (approx. 14’) (recordings) drew inspiration from Bizet’s opera, Carmen, and from his own virtuosity as a violinist.
Albums:
- Jane Ira Bloom, “Wild Lines: Improvising Emily Dickinson” (2017) (115’): “Bloom is a fiercely independent artist, sticking with her trademark soprano saxophone for her entire career, just as Dickinson forged her own path as a poet with an inimitable style and unique voice; and of course, both are women who established themselves at the peak of their craft in fields typically dominated by men.”
- Cecil Taylor Unit, “It Is in the Brewing Luminous” (1979) (69’): “. . . the playing is quite intense and dense with only a few moments of lyricism popping through. Taylor sounds very much like a human dynamo while Lyons' solos are full of fragile beauty. This is brilliant music that will not sound ‘safe’ or ‘easy listening’ even a century from now.”
- William Goldstein, “Muses” (2020) (60’): Goldstein created these pieces from three notes selected by the subject of each piece.
- Graham Dechter, “Major Influence” (2021) (48’): “After completing seven originals and co-arranging the classic ‘Pure Imagination’ with Mr. Hamilton, I came to the realization that every song on this recording, whether consciously or subconsciously, was dedicated to and/or directly influenced by one or more of my musical heroes.”
- Marcello Di Lisa, “L’estro intelligente” (Intelligent Inspiration) (2022) (57’) is drawn from toccatas by Alessandro Scarlatti.
- Joseph Tawadros, “The Prophet: Music Inspired by the Poetry of Kahlil Gibran” (2009) (69’): “The Prophet, penned in its original form by Lebanese writer Kahlil Gibran – a modern-day Sermon on the Mount and poetic source of pronouncements about living a righteous life – was used as a vehicle for Coptic Egyptian, and now Sydney-side Australian, Joseph Tawadros to bring his suite of original compositions for the oud to life.”
- Danças Ocultas, “Inspirar” (2025) (37’): “After three albums that can be symbolically described as exhalation (Arco, Amplitude and Dentro desse Mar), the band is making a respiratory U-turn with the album Inspirar, which describes both the inhalation and the absorption of influences and the inspiration that the music can bring to the listener.”
Music: songs and other short pieces
- Queen, “Don't Stop Me Now” (1978) (lyrics)
- The Rolling Stones, "Start Me Up" (lyrics)
- The Righteous Brothers, "You're My Soul and Inspiration" (lyrics)
- Coldplay, “Adventure of a Lifetime” (lyrics)
- Nawang Khechog, “Turquoise Lamp”
- Franz Schubert (composer), Die Berge (The Mountains), Op. 57, No. 2, D. 634 (1819) (lyrics)
Visual Arts
- Ossip Zadkine, Inspiration (1955)
- Norman Rockwell, Inspiration
- Salvador Dali, Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate. One Second before Awakening (1944)
- Wassily Kandinsky, To the Unknown Voice (1916)
- Francis Picabia, Effect of the Sun on the Banks of the Loring (1905)
- Jean-Honore Fragonard, Inspiration (1769)
- Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Air (1566)
Film and Stage
- La Belle Noiseuse (The Beautiful Nuisance): a aging painter regains his creative energy when a beautiful young model substitutes for his wife of many years
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