Staring at a White, Blank Page...

Inspiration. 

It's kind of a funny word. It has such a positive connotation. It makes you think of muses, music, and melodies. Basically: Beauty.

But that's just the thing about inspiration. It never flourishes in beauty. 

Inspiration only visits the dreamer when he's having nightmares. 

The beauty only comes from the breakdown.

 The real beauty, that is.

There is something. Some deep, dark, and hollow spot buried in every human. When it's struck, when something else, some inspiration, raps on its edges, it resonates. And it echoes within those hollow spots in others. And it's that rattle and hum that we call Beauty. Even Genius.

Somehow, we've managed to place our descriptions of the most hurtful, or most longing, or most destructive, at the very apex of our Beauty hierarchy.

We're enraptured with our own self-destruction.

Perhaps that's just sin.

So what's the point of all this melancholy macabre?

Simply to say that inspiration comes when life is here, at its fullest.

Sometimes that muse drops in on the Dreamer when he is clutching the sheets. Uncomfortably strewn across his bed. Neck back, ears clenched, and deep in a cold sweat. But other times she comes when he is sound in his sleep. His eyelids flickering from the rapid movements underneath. Sometimes inspiration reveals her gorgeous and demanding face when the Dreamer is overwhelmed in the well of information that is somehow coming from his own brain. Simply put: Inspiration is unpredictable. The only method of determining when she'll strike next is to know when she won't. And that's when the Dreamer is comfortable. When he is so far in his own sleep that he doesn't even dream.

After all, glass needs either fire or lightning to be formed.

In the Layman's terms: Busyness has served me well, there's a lot to write about as soon as I have the time to jot it down.

Leviathan...

Excerpt from Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan, page 263

Liberty and Necessity are Consistent; As in the

water, that hath not only liberty, but a necessity of

descending by the Channel: so likewise in the

Actions which men voluntarily doe; which (because

they proceed from their will) proceed from liberty;

and yet because every act of mans will, and every

desire, and inclination proceedeth from some cause,

and that another cause, which causes in a

continuall chaine (whose first link in the hand of

God the first of all causes) proceed from necessity.

So that to him that could see the connexion of

those causes, the necessity of all mens voluntary

actions, would appeare manifest. And therefore

God, that seeth, and disposeth all things, seeth also

that the liberty of man in doing what he will, is

accompanied with the necessity of doing that which

God will, & no more, nor lesse. For though men

may do many things, which God does not com-

mand, not is therefore Author of them; yet they

can have no passion, nor appetite any thing, of

which appetite Gods will is not the cause. And did

not his will assure the necessity of mans will, and 

consequently of all that on mans will dependeth,

the liberty of men would be a contradiction, and

impediment to the omnipotence and liberty of God.

And this shall suffice, (as to the matter in hand) of that 

naturall liberty, which only is properly called liberty.

 I have a political theory class this semester, and we are reading some of the great minds of the Enlightenment and forward. I was excited about the book list, but the actual reading is rough. I have been putting my favorite quotes up on my twitter (@kuwalker) as they catch my eye. 

But this one was different. The debate on Freewill vs Predestination has haunted me for quite some time. I've dismissed it for a while, calling it a "learn nothing" debate that only caused Christians to get mad at each other. Not exactly fruitful. Despite my efforts at cooling this debate, however, it popped its head up at various times whilst I was bounding across Europa. Then, just when I think I've escaped, who comes along with a wonderful quote that explains things rather nicely (albeit hard to read because of the Old English)? 

Thomas Hobbes.

Oh Murphy's Law, you never fail.