It happened again the other day.  Cruising up the coast for a surf, minding my own business, getting passed by a speeding funeral hearse, and in one instant flash, the course of my life was altered.  No, it wasn’t an accident, at least not of the car wreck variety. It was more of an accident of mind, and it’s been happening a lot lately.  Apparently I never read the life-as-an-artist handbook that warns of all the dangers of inspiration.  I worry that if I keep this up, my creative license may get revoked.

Inspiration is a tragic fleeting moment where a new vision sprouts from the shallow earthen grave of a bad idea.  Often times I cling to the rotting corpse out of desperation, not knowing where else to turn, ignoring the funeral procession, refusing to wear black.  But I play the fool.  Death itself was made for bad ideas. There is nothing creative about destruction, decay, and death.  Turning life into death is the natural order of things.  Do nothing, and you will have played your part in the unmourned dance.

The tragedy of inspiration is that often the lifeless idea is the safe idea.  And when inspiration comes gently fluttering in with the breeze, behind it lurks the force of a thousand waterfalls not to be resisted.  Life itself blasts out a soul-splitting bass-line from the speakers of the funeral hearse.  Get up and dance!  Mourn if you must, but get up and move!  When death turns into Life, it’s never what you expect.

It’s often not what anyone else expects either.  Always surprising, at times embraced, but more often rejected, true creativity has no other path than to walk through these rusty gates.  The lock’s busted, the gates swing freely in the wind, creaking out a strangely melodic tune.  Welcome to the graveyard of bad ideas.  Here you’ll find the world’s best artists dancing on the graves while Inspiration herself does donuts on the graveyard lawn with the volume turned up to eleven in the funeral hearse.