As a writer, I am constantly amazed at this vast universe of experience: When we looked back on our lives, we are led reflectably on how we would do things differently than what the current consensus predicts that we do. Thus I am only inspired when it comes to harnessing all of that experiential data and deducing from that the stories and novels that I am destined to birth into the world.
Experience is, and remains to be, a great teacher. It behooves each one of us to reflect on our lives with the delicacy of a surgeon's technique in interpreting those aspects that requires utmost care. That's why one should determine what type of writer one wants to be before he plunges headlong into this ocean of make-believe or reality.
Thus we need to go back in time to that era in which we began to emerge from our dungeon of darkness into this abyss of light. This article will delineate the three stages of life that every human being has invariably pass through.
CHILDHOOD
Childhood can be a time of awareness of your life's journey or it can be a painful reminder of all the acidic memories you endured. With me, it was a combination of both those factors which plunge me on a life-long course toward realizing my ultimate objective.
Thus this awareness made me spend many lonely hours after school ploughing through those rows of volumes on the shelves of the school's library and then dropping by the public library to peruse the volumes there. I would stay at the public library until the librarian told me it was time to close. Then I would get my personal belongings and start off for home. If those visits to the aforementioned libraries were during the week, then I would take a short-cut that would expedite my travel time. But if they felt on the weekends, my travel time would be prolonged by taking a more scenic route.
Once home, I would take mental note of the happenings in my household; things would be relatively peaceful during the weekdays, but the weekends would be filled with fear and foreboding. Yet those childhood experiences continued to be the primary source of my ideas, springing up in a wellspring of inspiration.
The Teenage Years
My teenage years were characterized by a spirit of rebellion; yet those years have also been the source of my inspiration for my stories and articles. For example, the article on "Memories" in my helium portfolio was written after I attended a baptismal ceremony at a small rural church. But one of my personal favorites remain the article I wrote to the given title, "Reflections: Thoughts on being gay."
As a teenager, I was often ostracized by the community in which I was raised; there was no positive outlet for young people to exhibit their uniqueness, especially if you had a different lifestyle from those you interacted with on a daily basis. So the nonconformity of my attitude under such circumstances caused me to rebel. Still, the teenage years are, and remains to be, a valuable time; and for the writer who will harness that vast reservoir of experience will utimately have a never-ending supply of inspiration.
ADULTHOOD
My awareness that I had fully entered into adulthood came on that blissful day when I left home to attend college. I was finally on my own; no more catering to the rules of the family household, my primary objective was to pursue unrelentingly my life's journey that I had become cognizant of in childhood. Thus I planned a curriculum that would permit me to develop my talents by selecting courses to that effect.
Consequently, as I reflect on earlier forays into that stage of life, I am amazed at the unwitticisms that I often endured. Yet those forays into my earlier adulthood are the responses of a young man toward his environment. A man in his twenties in possession of certain academic credentials still lacks the experience needed to become ennobled by the communiy in which he has lived; or, the community in which he finds himself living out his life's journey. Anyway, those earlier forays keep spurring me on toward attaining that majectic height of my profession.
Then when you have entered those middle years(35-55), you can look back with a note of reprieve while wondering "How I got over?" How you got over will be your litmus test in determining just where you stand among your peers.
Then when you have entered those matured adult years(56 and beyond), you can look back on those earlier forays in unadulterated relish.
Today I am 53 years old; and I have amassed a wealth of experience for which I can harnessed and shaped the ideas that will ultimately eventuate into my stories and novels. If I continue with this unrequited quest without abandon, then that wellspring of inspiration will rise to meet my muse where I most need it.
CONCLUSION
So where does one's inspiration comes from? When you begin to tap into that vast reservoir of your experience, the inspiration that you will need for the journey will be waiting for you when you least expect it.