The Virtue of Inspiration

For the second time within 24 hours my thoughts returned to Inspiration.  This time in regards to the practice of inspiration as a virtue.  Typically I have often seen inspiration serve as a medication rather than as a virtue, for it the foundation it is born of is different.

There is a passage in Matthew 7:24 about building one's belief on sand or on rock.  I see the practice of inspiration work the same way.  What inspiration is built on determines whether it is a long-term evolution or a short-term creation.

When inspiration is utilized as medication, the foundation might be the quicksand of depression, or the quicksand of distrust or the quicksand of boredom.  Whatever that foundation maybe, inspiration here is grabbing onto something to try to pull us up but not often out of that which does not inspire us. 

Inspiration as a rock in my life is a flywheel of virtue which creates virtuous cycles and so it is always in hand, it is simply the way I create meaning in my own life.  Creating meaning and inspiration then go hand in hand and here this is not making meaning because their is the quicksand of meaningless - because that again reverts to medication rather than virtue.

A good example for me is how Guy Kawasaki talks about Startups and how he views making meaning as a part of his particular virtue, which he does in this 3 minute video :

The meaning that got fashioned in the last 24 hours is the changing how I view my own Red Wisdom and Orange Wisdom.  I realized that Red Wisdom is not about mathematics, nor finance, nor analytics but about POTENTIAL.   That brought back the original separation between how I view an entrepreneur and venture capitalist from a sales person, marketer or brand expert.  The former is building potential, the latter is developing social energy.

Social energy is itself my acceptance of how society commonly thinks of "social media",  generally as a marketing view, or a social network how it refers to professional connections. All of this are subtle changes of meaning and this stems from inspiration being a virtue in my life.

The virtue of inspiration has a heartbeat in play and experimentation, but the medication of inspiration is rooted in something else other than a virtue.  If inspiration saves a life that is a good thing but that is an accident and not a design, unless I am versed in professional care. 

Our words do matter but we assume attachments with inspiration because as a medication, we are citing a rotten world but as a virtue, we individually own the power of our own inspiration.  One is temporal and continually it seems becomes a drug of choice, the other as a virtue is a growth - even a growth that entirely removes us from the quicksand that pulls us under.

If inspiration is a duty of care,  I see that in doctors and therapists who are trained to look after those who need professional help, whereas not being conscious of this medicated form of inspiration can become the only way we view inspiration, and personally that short-term or short-lived way of looking at inspiration is not what I find inspiring - but if it becomes a form of life value, then that is a tremendous form of personal transformation - the kind that I am practicing here again and again and again - without the desire to inspire others - for that inspiration is their value or personal choice.

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