How To Be Inspired – Part 1: During COVID-time

My sources of inspiration have dwindled. Just a bit. So I figured I might as well write about that.

What do you do when you’re not feeling inspired?

Different people have different methods.

Some get a block, take a break, shake it off, and come back.

Some try to go back to the original inspiration.

Some go on a treasure hunt for some new inspiration.

But what happens when it’s still COVID-time, all your friends are busy or live far away, you don’t have a license, and the limits to where you can/do go are as follows: Home, Library, Park, Any place that sells food…?

Here’s the answer: Novels and Netflix.

Occassionally, listening to music and Googling paintings or artistic photographs works too.

It’s the twenty-first century after all. And my parents and teachers who didn’t grow up with as much tech as I and the rest of GenZ did never fail to remind us how lucky we are to be growing up in a world where all the information we want is at the tip of our fingers.

My dad tells me about when he was young, if he wanted to learn about the world, despite how small the curiosity, he’d have to walk to a library, open up a giant encyclopedia (you know that hard-copy info-hub that existed before Google), and search for his information by patiently flipping through a gazillion pages.

And there was no Ctrl+F so you could just search the document for your key words. And you couldn’t search up multiple key words at the same time in a search bar.

I’ve learned to embrace quarantine; learned to deal with lack of inspiration. Because, yes, it would be good to go out and live life to fullest and actually enjoy all the world has to offer. If flights and trains weren’t being cancelled and a new strain of COVID wasn’t emerging. But alas, that is not the case. So, for the time being, living vicariously through the stories of novel and movie characters, or the speakers of a good poem or song, or the figures in a painting… that’ll have to do.

For the time being, living off of memories and making new memories over Zoom, Whatsapp, and Instagram will have to do.

For the time being, a little- okay, a lot of daydreaming will have to do.

***Read the sequel: “How To Be Inspired – Part 2: During AND not during COVID-time“.