The intelligence of inspiration

‘From integration time to creativity’


Hard work or playfulness?
Through elite sport, I learnt from a young age to push myself when I wanted to achieve something.
Through this, I’ve learnt qualities such as discipline and perseverance, which stand me in good stead today.

Even whilst ‘working hard’, you can still display creative abilities.
Creative in sport, games, art, languages, humour. You name it.

However, constantly drawing on this well raises the question of whether I actually had any idea back then what creativity really is.

Intelligence is creativity that brings joy
I think that’s a lovely saying.
But how do we actually conjure up that joyful creativity?

Whilst building my website, writing blogs and finding a workplace full of character, various elements came together beautifully. I’ve increasingly come to experience creativity as a receptive process.

The art of receptive creation
In my view, deeper, inspired creation – the kind that truly moves, feels right and resonates – isn’t something that can be forced. When I try to force it, I find that words become empty, images flat, and choices contrived. Something emerges, but it lacks life.

In my previous blog post about integration time, I wrote that it sometimes seems as though nothing is happening, whilst a great deal is going on beneath the surface. It is precisely in stillness, silence and doing nothing that the pieces of the puzzle often fall into place. The right words present themselves without me having to search for them.

Ideas stirring beneath the surface.
Connecting.

That requires a form of trust that feels different from trust in hard work. Hard work gives you the feeling that you’re in control. Receptiveness, on the other hand, requires that you can temporarily tolerate not yet knowing where things are heading. That you leave room for an answer that hasn’t yet fully revealed itself. Quite a challenge. Especially for people who are used to intensity, pace and taking the initiative.

A place that calls to me
Over the past six months, I’ve been confronted with this in a rather special way. Without fully understanding why, I felt increasingly drawn to a particular region. An area I’d been visiting for years, but where I’d never before seriously considered living or working.

So I decided it might be nice for my dog to discover some new places again, a little further from home. This took us into the incredibly beautiful, vast countryside and really opened my eyes.

If we were to give it a spiritual dimension:
I feel and know that I’m meant to be there.

I automatically feel inspired when I’m there; ideas for blog posts spring to mind and the writing flows effortlessly afterwards. The more forests we explore in this region, the clearer this realisation becomes to me. You could rightly say that this feels like fertile ground for me.

When I first jotted down these thoughts, I had no idea where they would lead. I am now in talks about a practice space in precisely that region.

In hindsight, it seems logical. At the time, it felt mainly like listening to something that wasn’t yet fully comprehensible. Step by step, it became clear where it was heading.

💫
Inspiration cannot be captured.
But it can be received.

I didn’t come up with the best ideas myself.
I’ve learnt to recognise them.