Questions to reflect on

1. Write a story beginning with the lines: Happy New Year 2030! With the words still ringing in my ears, and somewhat

tired after the party, I entered my office. It was still dark...

2. Who did you want to become when you went to secondary school? Did you have dreams about your future occupation? How do they relate to what you actually are doing? Write down the dreams. Are you happy with how are realizing them? Think about how they can be made happen now, with what you have achieved, learned and with the resources you have. Write a plan.

3. Write a letter to yourself from the age of 16. Try to be as empathic as possible, do not preach or play the all-knowing adult. Tell your younger self the story of your life since you were 16 in a way that he or she would find the most engaging and interesting. Embellish when you feel like it, but do not lie.

4. Think of something you would really want to achieve, something global and big like world peace, or local and small, like a neighbourhood book cafe. Imagine an organization that would deal with such a goal. Describe it, prepare an action plan.

2. Inspiration

Ode to my Muse Sing for me siren, I will follow you.

I am following you like love, like sleep,

like a sudden gasp of nausea.

I want to sit near you up on a hill.

The wind shall pass through, but you are not in.

A fire shall burst through, but you are not in.

You are the shadow of ash.

Speak to me,

Image D

not with the breath, the word, not with avowal, but with waves,

tightening our embrace as we fall

—falling—

spirits sucked into the lung.

Right at the centre:

You—

Inspiration means touching the higher feelings and higher needs of a person. Perhaps is it so that inspiration connects us with some primeval aspect of ourselves and others, within a domain not conscious in ordinary states of mind but available during meditation, trance or lucid dreaming. Through inspiration we become beautiful, if beauty is the reflection of the life force within us. We can be inspired by other people or by encounters with art, architecture, nature, qualities of light and shadow, etc., and we can inspire others. In most religious traditions there is a belief that some people can be inspired by higher powers: by God, angels, or saints. For example, one of the central ideas in Christianity is that the Bible was inspired by God; supernatural influence rendered the writing of human authors completely true and reliable. The scripture was received as a revelation; while most theologians would not claim that it was dictated to the humans word by word, they would propose that God had been guiding their thoughts and their hand to express what He had intended, more or less literally. Ancient cultures believed in a kind of divine inspiration of artists and visionaries; supernatural beings such as the Muses in Greek and Roman tradition supported their creative processes, although, usually, the effects of such creativity were seen as the fruit of the human beings’ talent and work, and not considered

to be divine as such, with the exception of oracles, such as Delphi, intuitively verbalizing prophecies and visions sent by Apollo (see Chapter 3.1.). In more recent times the faith in a divine source of inspiration of creativity is usually less common, instead, the artist is seen as someone with an ability to get in touch with higher faculties, get in the mood, through a state of grace, hard work, or both, and unlock the power to produce imaginative work. But inspiration is not only about art, it is also about the stimulation of a person to do good, act compassionately, be a better human being.

It means the awakening of a desire to act on these aspects of the human psyche, to follow the impulses deriving from needs such as that of developing selfless relationships, of justice, or of creating something new and original, and reflecting ideas acquired from excursions into the imaginative space.

Some people have a gift to inspire others, to reach out to their higher selves and touch their creative and compassionate feelings in such a way that they become moved to act on them and realize them. People with this ability are often to be found in religious vocations, but not exclusively, they also work as pedagogues, social and political activists, socially engaged artists or journalists, etc. If they are to be regarded as genuinely inspirational, they must act in good faith, with a sincere intention to reach out to others’ higher aspects and to selflessly help them in doing whatever is good and true for them. Otherwise, attempts at persuasion and mobilization of other people are rather to be seen as the establishing of power or manipulation. Inspiring others means to work selflessly for them and not to realize one’s own aims through them.

There also exist dark inspirations, when people are compelled to use their higher faculties to act in ways that are harmful to others, for example, when they use their faith in order to condemn others, when they are persuaded that a vice is indeed a virtue, or a triviality an aim worth living and dying for. These are examples

of the misuse of higher and creative faculties, leading typically to a more or less permanent damage of such faculties: loss of faith, trust, sincerity, disillusionment with the world.