On inspiration and social anxiety

 

  Recently many people ask me where do I get my inspiration from. The question more than reasonable, as these days I mostly write fiction, and I focus on regular creative writing exercises that serve me best. Few years ago I would have given a very elaborate answer to that: I would be talking about all thoughts that come to me as I pass the streets, looking at all buildings, blue sky, how strangers on the train evoke me a story. This time the answer is way easier: inspiration comes to me, like to most people, in silence. Preferably in calm, slow paced environment of my own bed alongside the feeling that there is nothing in this world that I have to do right now.

There are few things that can enhance your inspiration. Such as a stable day job, that you do not hate, a peace of mind and the lack of internet. There is probably no need to explain the blessing influence of the first two, so I would like to focus on the latter. You see, Internet makes me socially aware. And as I am naturally socially awkward, the access to the window to the world makes me feel totally exposed. One click on Google icon and I am no longer alone.

I guess there is more people around for whom the constant connection to the Internet is a source of social anxiety. Don't get me wrong- it’s not only social media. It’s the feeling of being constantly connected, available, exposed to any information that might pass through the digital channel; it’s the feeling like someone was creeping behind your back, watching your every move.

And so to speak, social anxiety is a number one enemy of inspiration of any kind. Most writers admit that they are at their best in their own bed, not to say desk (if you live in London, you know that a decent desk is a luxury one shall not be dreaming of). Straying from the theme of writers’ inspiration: the inspiration of any kind. Even if you don’t consider yourself an artist, let’s focus on an example of thinking activity. Every person thinks. Now connect all of your devices to the Internet and try to think. The shadows of your family and friends will be creeping out from every direction, and all this information you were searching for seven years ago with no purpose at all now becomes available. Is your thought still roaming freely? Expand this image- now picture yourself, with all your connected devices in a busy coffee shop where you’re endangered to meet all your neighbours. Someone in the queue looks like your former colleague you failed to contact over the past few months. Your email inbox lies wide open before you, encouraging you to insure a car that you don’t have and sign a petition on something you have no idea about, while the radio bombards you with the recent weather podcast. Now let me ask you once again: what is your inspiration?

The need of being alone with our own thoughts is a vital part of any creative process. From the point of view of your poor, suppressed individuality any human contact, whether direct or indirect, is an unnecessary distraction. It’s creativity that prevents us from becoming a part of a herd. The feeling of social anxiety reminds us that a human is, first of all, an individual. We believe we ought to fight it in the society that pressures us to be a part of a larger body, appealing to our need of belonging. Maybe nowadays one needs to ask themselves, if feeling socially anxious is not a cry of some inner self, the call for individual development. After all, we are all imprisoned inside our minds, and only ourselves we possess truly. And maybe that’s why the real inspiration can only come from within. If we dare to listen to it.

One-off Summertime

 She would be telling this story to George Noskov, surrounded by empy coca-cola cans. To George, the one she used to call a misogynist, a lunatic, sometimes a dreamer. She will regret all that she said after his death, or rather all the other things that she didn't say. Especially that she would never tell that story to anybody else, because who would like to listen to so ordinary a story, so sad, so elusive that it seems to be untrue. But she doesn't care whether anyone believes it or not, for there is no way to tell it the way it was, with all the smells, the colours, the music it brought, the wind it brings when it comes back. Anyway, it doesn't matter if someone understands it, as there is no more such summer, and it never will be. That one was the only one, a one-off summer in the world, and it has already passed away, not leaving anything which could be picked up by someone else. It was only her who could understand, her and somebody else, another her in another part in the world. You see, once a time, one summer, two girls simultaneously had fallen in love. A blonde and a brunette, born only few weeks apart, only few miles away. For neither of them it was the first time, but all the loves are the only ones in the world for their own summertimes. Years later, only one of them will remember. 

 The feeling which will come along with it will be like a memory of a time loop. She won't be talking about it, as it is not a memory which might fit into today's reality. Only sometimes she will be wondering if it still exists, that bench outside the old bus station in Bristol, if any trace of her memory still sits there, awaiting. 

 The other girl will be getting married. She will change the spelling of her name- it used to sound Russian, now it's just a name. On a picture she will stay just as beautiful and untouched, like experiences had gone past her, not leaving a mark on her shoulder, no trace on her face. She will look happy. 

 Or maybe it is because they have lived so many miles apart for so many years, they both appear to each other just as images, faces from the past, and they cannot relate to each other anymore. Or perhaps for both of them, the summer wind has never stopped, and there will always be parts of them, paused within a loop of one-off summertime. Perhaps.

 The memory will bring them together on one evening, seven years and hundreds miles away. It would be one of them looking for the other, and the second one answering within seconds. Through all these years they have not grown indifferent or unaware of each other, like their souls were right there, waiting outside the loop. In their paused smiles on old photographs, for a moment, they will find a way to resume their one-off summertime, and to be drawn back, like it was all they've been ever waiting for.

 The story is a piece from my new short story, not yet completed, but just a sketch as I am trying to get back on track with writing. Soon I am to start an online creative writing course. Join me in this journey!