I stood side stage at John Hancock Hall. Blood rushed to my feet, my neck stiffened, and anxiety consumed me. This was the same kind of paralyzing, intense anxiety that occurred when I presented a final project worth a third of my grade or when I interviewed for a job for the first time. Now it was back, just before performing at a ballet competition against hundreds of other talented dancers from around the world. I knew once I was on stage dancing that I would not be as frightened, but stepping onto the stage was one of the most daunting things I had ever needed to do. I watched the dancer before me land her jumps without a sound, complete her turns flawlessly, and dance with the incredible energy that can only come from joy. She began the final turning series in her variation ending with an en dedans pirouette, and something changed in my mind as I watched her. I remembered how difficult those turns are and how it feels when I land them. The anxiety and fear I felt began to turn to adrenaline. I can only describe the feeling as a motivational force that grew until it felt like pure power. I watched as the dancer completed her performance and took her final bow, her expression lighting up the stage. I knew that feeling; there is nothing like it in the world. It was in this moment of pure focus, determination, and desire that nothing else mattered but my performance. As I inhaled and waited for my music to begin, I knew I had two minutes and ten seconds to get to the joy I saw in her expression. I felt as though I was a different version of myself, motivated and powerful, and like I had the precision land the jumps, complete the turns, and share my passion for the story through the movement of my arms, the way I held my neck, and the expression on my face. My heart swelled with the emotion of the story I was about to perform, and I knew exactly what to do on stage.

As I stepped beyond the curtain, I truly felt in control of myself and my performance. From daily rehearsals filled with endless constructive criticism to muscles constantly aching, I had spent my year living and breathing ballet. At the beginning of my senior year, I planned to scale back the number of competitions and performances I would do because I wanted to enjoy my final year of high school as much as possible. However, this was not my ballet instructor’s plan. Madame Akhmedova, the artistic director of my ballet school, prepared us for seven competitions in one year alone, training harder and more deliberately for each one. We traveled to several states and internationally as well. Madame Akhmedova told me earlier in the year that my fear of performing had hurt my dancing. In rehearsal, I could complete numerous pirouettes consistently, but on stage, I quivered at the thought of one. Ultimately, I found myself side stage at the Youth America Grand Prix for the last time in my high school career, alive and in tune with my environment and my capability in a way I hadn’t ever experienced. It was as if I had found new sources of energy, focus, and persistence that I hadn’t known I possessed. I recognize it now as the accumulation of training, desire, pride, and even fear bundled together synergistically (or “… and even fear, working in synergy”) Even more than that, I found myself with an overwhelming desire to not only perform to the best of my abilities but to also share an emotional and impactful story through my performance. It lasted for just the two minutes and ten seconds that I was on stage, and, for those moments, I felt I had the world and what happened within it in my control. Since that time, I have continually reminded myself of this feeling: an unforgettable swell of motivation, confidence in my capabilities as an artist, and the ability to outperform. It was these feelings that urged me to wonder why, at a moment of high stress and pressure, I suddenly felt this incredible sense of inspiration. Indeed, I began to wonder whether inspiration came only in moments of extreme stress.

After some thought on the matter, I turned to my mother. I asked her about the concept of inspiration not only because she is a successful executive at work and an avid reader and writer, she was also the person I trusted and looked up to the most: the person whom I knew would be most thoughtful and honest in her response. After working as an executive in technology for twenty-six years, she encountered numerous instances of inspiration to develop new products and business tactics. She explained that inspiration is a rush of energy, creativity and focus, and an overwhelming desire and ability to target that capability at a specific outcome.1 She touched on the essence of inspiration for her personally. Rather than having increased excitement, inspiration gives us the energy and the ability to ideate, to create, and to achieve.2 Inspiration sparks a change, a generation of ideas, and an ability to execute well. While her explanation of inspiration itself was clear, I did not fully understand why it occurred. What exactly is inspiration and how do we know when we are feeling it? My mother’s response made me wonder even more about this concept and its source.

To better grasp the significance of inspiration, I researched its etymological origin. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, inspiration originally came from the Latin inspīrātiōn-em , noun of action from inspīrāre to inspire v. Inspirare meant “to breathe or “the action of blowing on or into.”3 This definition did not quite match the experience that I felt side stage. Rather than being a force from the outside, the inspiration I felt was a motivational force that came from within me. I had experienced a rush of endurance, focus, precision, and even excitement, as if some kind of motivational force had consumed my entire being. It was as if I had a kind of transformation not contemplated by the formal definition. Inspiration was defined in a literal sense as being “blown” onto, and my experience suggested that the real power in it had come from within and that it dramatically increased my skill. I looked to a later definition of inspiration wondering if there was perhaps a better explanation. In the mid-nineteenth century, inspiration was defined as “a breathing in or infusion of some idea, purpose, etc. into the mind; the suggestion, awakening, or creation of some feeling or impulse, esp. of an exalted kind.”4 This later definition suggests an almost revelatory power generated from within that stimulates the flow of energy and ideas, resulting in greater capability.5 I found this to be a much more accurate description of the moment that I had side stage. As I watched the dancer before me at the Grand Prix, I was enlightened by the idea that I was capable and ready to perform my best. This notion of competence, determination, hope, and belief in myself quelled my nerves, turned my fear into drive, and sparked the emotion that is at the heart of my artistry. It was indeed an “awakening” as described in the nineteenth century definition, but how did it happen? Why was I able to feel it? And why hadn’t I felt it in quite that way before?

I turned to the research of two leading psychologists, Todd Thrash and Andrew Elliot, to learn more about how inspiration occurs. These researchers wrote that “according to our conceptualization, inspiration is characterized by evocation, motivation, and transcendence.”6 After conducting a study on the process of inspiration, these psychologists came to understand inspiration as a sequence of events. The process begins when a subject is aroused or awakened by a particular stimulus that attracts their attention and sparks their passion. While the source is frequently unique to the person, the stimulus allows the subject to eventually be motivated by what he or she sees. The subject finds themselves with an increased desire or energy to perform a task. After motivation, the subject then experiences transcendence whereby the subject applies their inspiration and motivation towards a task. Transcendence allows the subject to put forth enhanced desire and energy, resulting in success of the task. Consequently, inspiration is a process. Rather than a singular moment, Thrasher and Elliot demonstrate that inspiration is a sequence of events beginning with a stimulus and ending with the application of the subject’s response into the world. 7 While I had only recognized inspiration as the moment where my mindset changed, Thrasher and Elliot pushed me to consider that inspiration is the process of me responding to the ballet dancer before me on stage as a stimulus followed by an increase in drive, determination, and will to perform and the ability to use my technical skill to land every turn, position, and jump. The process of inspiration allowed me to perform my dance more accurately than I had before and simultaneously illustrate the emotion of the dance in a way I never had before. But who gets to enjoy this particular experience and why? How would one go about creating this process?

I thought that perhaps a successful artist might be an informative source for deeper understanding, so I turned to Tamara Rojo, a former principal with the Royal Ballet Company, to learn about her approach to dance and whether or not she had ever experienced anything like I had:

An idea never comes to me suddenly; it sits inside me for a while, and then emerges. When I’m preparing for a particular character, I look for ideas about her wherever I can. When I first danced Giselle, I found Lars von Trier’s film Dancer in the Dark incredibly inspiring. It was so dark, and it felt just like a modern-day version of Giselle – the story of a young woman taken advantage of by others. It brought the part alive for me. Now when I talk to others who are playing Giselle, they sometimes say they’re worried that it feels like a parody, and not relevant to today. I tell them to watch that film and see how modern it can be.8

Tamara highlights the idea that inspiration is a process which starts with her searching for stimuli, without much certainty on where she’ll find it. For one particular role, Giselle, she found her stimulus in watching Dancer in the Dark, a film that was created nearly one hundred and forty years after the ballet Giselle was choreographed. She seems to have identified concepts in the film that were similar to the story of Giselle and used her imagination to create her own unique, modern piece. For her, the process of inspiration came gradually with the search for stimulus from outside sources, the exercise of her imagination, and the transformation of the two into something distinctive. She later writes that “creative empathy” and “instinct” are her guiding forces for inspirational performances.9 Without the ability to learn from other performances, to feel the emotion being expressed, and the tools to turn those into her own authentic expression and unique movement, the process of inspiration would not have been complete. She adds that “without those, you can still give a good, technically correct performance – but it will never be magical.”10 Tamara’s reference to a “magical” performance emphasizes her successful transcendence as a result of the process of inspiration. She advises that other dancers follow this process and allow others to help inspire rather than intimidate you.11 I can certainly relate to Tamara’s experience because I, too, found my stimulus in watching another performer and the result was an enhancement to my technical competency and artistic capability. Could Tamara’s experience be applicable to everyday life, to those who are not involved in the arts?

In thinking about the answer to that question, I wanted a more meaningful view of how inspiration is understood in our society today. Interestingly, inspiration has become a trend across one of the most popular tools of our age, social media. No matter your age or place in life, quotes and sayings described as inspirational have become commonplace in what we see every day. Social media posts often depict these quotes with a beautiful landscape in the background encouraging the reader to stay inspired. From workout enthusiasts to parents trying to pull their kids out of bed in the morning for school, many appear to be directly influenced by these sayings such as Roy Bennet’s alleged quote “start each day with a positive thought and a grateful heart.”12 Is this truly inspiration? Can it be as simple as reading something or looking at a picture? The short answer is, no. As a society, we often diminish the value of inspiration by depicting it as something that is easily accessible: something everyone can have. We confuse inspiration with a stimulus that creates motivation or positive thinking. In “8 Ways to find Inspiration When You Need it Most”, professor and candidate for the President of the American Psychological Association, Dr. Susan Whitebourne outlines different tactics to develop inspirational thought processes. She advises her readers to “read something”, “team up with others”, and to “break your inspiration down into manageable pieces.”13 Rather than educating her audience on inspiration as a process of substantially increased intellectual capability or one that yields outsized achievement, she tries to break it down into individual, accessible parts. So, it’s not just social media that is misinterpreting true inspiration, it’s parts of the psychological community as well. While this may not be surprising given that we are a society that values achievement almost above all else, it is concerning in that it may cause us all to appreciate it less. Dr. Whitebourne’s article does not help the reader understand how rare and powerful inspiration is, it merely attempts to democratize it. She is not alone. Many psychologists including mind and body physician Dr. Lissa Rankin, sports psychologist Warrick Wood, and other medical and psychological practitioners I researched seem to be speaking to an audience that wants to understand inspiration as common and within easy reach. They want us to believe we can all have it, if we simply try. That made me continue to wonder, why does that happen?

Though the answer to that question is difficult to conclude with certainty, we can intuit part of the answer from the important writings of psychologist Scott Kaufman. As he writes in the Harvard Business Review, “Whereas positive affect is activated when someone is making progress toward their immediate, conscious goals, inspiration is more related to an awakening to something new, better, or more important: transcendence of one’s previous concerns.”14 Kaufman notes that our inherent ability to generate a feeling of excitement does not mean that we are truly inspired. Rather, true inspiration represents an elevated capability when compared to our standard thought processes. Individuals in an excited or even a motivated state may perform well. However, inspired individuals have found a deeper sense of meaning or a more advanced level of thinking within the process.15 Excitement is only part of the inspirational process. So, is true inspiration quite rare? Yes, truly reaching an elevated level of capability in thinking, ideating, creating, performing, in addition to realizing achievement from it is likely rare, but it does happen. While we may not be able to be truly inspired from a quote hanging on a wall or in our daily social media feed, inspiration can happen to you wherever you are and possibly when you least expect it.

As New York TimesNew York Times commentator David Brooks states in “What is Inspiration?”, “Inspiration is not earned. Your investment of time and effort prepares you for inspiration, but inspiration is a gift that goes beyond anything you could have deserved.”16 Brooks suggests that inspiration is not something we can prepare for or even foster, but it is an experience we are privileged to be a part of.17 We can read hundreds of inspirational quotes, see beautiful paintings by world renowned artists, but no matter how hard we try, inspiration may never come. That may be a bit frightening or disappointing, but I think it’s true. We may never truly find our stimulus or be able to translate that into superior capability. We may also not be able to definitively prove that inspiration is a process and that it can be reliably repeated. As Professor Victoria Oleynick states in a 2014 journal article, there are challenges that may prove insurmountable in our efforts. Oleynick discusses inspiration as an unclear and under-investigated topic among the scientific community. It is difficult to construct a truly scientific test, for multiple reasons, and it is therefore easy to confuse with other terms we perceive to be related such as motivation and insight, which are quite a bit different. Oleynick writes that “among these challenges have been (a) a lack of clarity about the meaning of inspiration; (b) difficulty of operationalization; (c) ambiguity about whether inspiration is distinct from related constructs; (d) preconceptions that inspiration is unimportant relative to “perspiration,” and (e) a variety of barriers to neuroscientific investigation.”18 The scientific community has yet to observe the entire explanation of inspiration’s chemical and biological sources.19

So, it is a term that is confused by society, although we’ve attempted to democratize it, it happens reasonably infrequently in its truest form, and we have a difficult time recreating it or understanding it scientifically. We tend to view unattainable concepts like this as a challenge: an issue to solve. We simply may not be able to create it because we want it, and we must live with that. Our society needs to realize that inspiration may prove inaccessible to the majority. That is what makes the concept so beautiful. Although many may never truly be inspired within their lifetime, we can continue the search for what we believe to be inspiring and appreciate and admire the work of those who have been inspired. Inspiration achieved easily would not be as meaningful.

Clearly there is more to inspiration than I initially thought. While my experience side stage at John Hancock Hall gave me incredible energy and artistry and even success, I never realized that the experience would be as extraordinary as it was, nor as difficult to repeat. As most people do, I associated inspiration with a feeling everyone gets eventually, and I did not understand the extent to which it would affect me. I honestly believed that most people could achieve it, that it was a matter of searching and determination and the right stimulus. Perhaps, then, it is not our ability to be truly inspired that matters most. Instead, we should all find joy in the pursuit of it, and know there is value in finding stimulus, motivation and positive energy. However, now that I have experienced inspiration, I can’t help but find that to be an unsatisfactory answer. I want to experience it again.

Bibliography

Notes

1. Eder, Noelle, interview with Author. Personal Interview. Washington, D.C, April 03, 2020.

2. Eder, Noelle, interview with Author.

3. Oxford English Dictionary, s.v.Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “inspiration,” April 05, 2020, https://www-oed-com.ezproxy.bu.edu/view/Entry/96980?redirectedFrom=inspiration.

4. Oxford English Dictionary, s.v.Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “inspiration.”

5. Oxford English Dictionary, s.v.Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “inspiration.”

6. Thrasher,Todd, Elliot, Andrew. “Inspiration as a Psychological Construct.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, no. 4 (2003): 885.

7. Thrasher, Elliot. “Inspiration as a Psychological Construct,” 871.

8. Rojo, Tamara, interview with Laura Barnett. https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2012/jan/02/top-artists-creative-inspiration

9. Rojo, Tamara, interview with Laura Barnett.

10. Rojo, Tamara, interview with Laura Barnett.

11. Rojo, Tamara, interview with Laura Barnett.

12. Benett, Roy. “Best Inspirational Quotes for Killer Social Media Posts.” Louise Myers Visual and Social Media Marketing Tips. April 2020.

13. Whitebourne, Susan. “8 Ways to Find Inspiration When You Need It Most.” Psychology Today, January 2017.

14. Kaufman, Scott. “Why Inspiration Matters.” Harvard Business Review, November 2011.

15. Kaufman, Scott. “Why Inspiration Matters.”

16. Brooks, David. “What is Inspiration?” New York TimesNew York TimesNew York Times, April 2016.

17. Brooks, David. “What is Inspiration?”

18. Olyenick et al. “The Scientific Study of Inspiration in the Creative Process: Challenges and Opportunities.” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, vol. 8 (2014).

19. Olyenick et al. “The Scientific Study of Inspiration in the Creative Process: Challenges and Opportunities.”