Creating Inspiration.

There are many ways and many places to find inspiration. In and around our beautiful earth: sunsets at the beach, fall leaves in colorful piles by the sidewalk, snow covered mountains, are just a few ideas. Then there are museums, books, music, dance, performances where art and artists create and inspire. Even a well planned and executed dinner entree can give me color and texture and shape ideas.  

The very act of creating can be a way to find inspiration. I get creative ideas from all of these places and more, but this week, I got my inspiration from a tissue box. 

"Never Stop Learning."

I was just gathering laundry and refilling the tissue box, when I saw it. I stopped all my busy work and just stared at the wise words coming from the most mundane place: an empty tissue box. 

I have studied and learned and worked at many things over my lifetime so far. And, I'll admit to my own failings for sure, along with some successes. But I'm reaching a certain time of life when society expects me to know all I need to know, to stop learning, working and creating. 

I know it's ageist thinking. And I know in my heart, it's not only wrong thinking, it's a ticket to an uninspiring life. What do I do? 

Learn from a tissue box? Yes.

Because somewhere out there is a designer or art director who needed help. They'd been given a problem: to think outside the usual tissue box, to create something different. And maybe, just maybe, they were a little lost and lacking in inspiration. Maybe they told themselves that designing something as mundane as a tissue box, could be a learning experience. 

Even though you and I have lived quite a few decades of life on this planet, life is still one big learning experience because I've never lived in this exact time before. Neither have you. I've never been this age before and neither have you. 

So therefore: I, you, we are all still learning. 

Now some people out there will sigh and pull back and deny any need to learn anything new. They'll say that there are no new ideas. Yes, I actually had an art director tell me that decades ago.

But since then, there have been many new ideas in my life. Computers, email, laptops, iPads and smart phones, just to name a few. So I'd say he was wrong, but maybe, he just lacked inspiration and he didn't know or care to find out how to get it back. Maybe he thought he'd learned all he needed to know. 

I know one thing for certain, I  don't know all I need to know. And I can't see a life worth living without creating. So I need inspiration.

This week, I got it from a tissue box designed by a fellow creative traveler. So thanks, whoever you are, for creating the inspiration I very much needed. 

"Never Stop Learning."