Let the little things inspire you

When you’re the kind of person who has so many thoughts running through your mind every day, it’s hard to be trapped in the four walls of your house. I can’t stand doing the same exact routine every day – let alone for almost five months. I’m not going to live like my life’s some television sitcom with the same exact plot day in and day out.

As someone who finds solace through art and words, I try as much as possible to get my thoughts flowing out of me through ink and paint. But when you’re surrounded by the same people and trapped in the same house for who-knows-how-long, it’s hard to draw inspiration.

I often find myself wondering what to do with the stack of notebooks I have in my room. I want to fill them up with new poems and prose so badly, but what exactly should I write about? What ideas should I express when everything and everyone else in the world is just as trapped and lost as I am?

I’m even struggling to come up with each word as I’m typing this right now. But this creative block must come to an end somehow.
I tried to take a look at the things around me. Even tried talking to some friends over the internet so I could somehow get something out of my head, until a thought came to me and I don’t know why I didn’t think of this sooner.

Pay close attention to the things around you.

Take a look at that old, rusty lamp in the living room. Why did it come to the point that it would look so broken? Where did the lamp come from? Why does it have a crack at the front and who broke it?

How about your dad’s old cassette tape collection hidden in the depths of that dusty oak cabinet? What could be recorded in it? When was it recorded? Will there ever be a chance for you to watch those tapes and discover new things about the past?

Questions. Question everything around you. From there, you can make countless lines of poetry and prose. Make poems about the toys on your bed. Make essays about how the leaves in your garden sway in the morning. Make endless prose about how each day is the same but also so different at the same time. Make a sketch about that one thing that keeps you up all night. Sing a song about the first person you talk to in the morning.

Inspiration is everywhere. It is in people. It is in places. It is hidden in the most miniscule and mundane of things. It doesn’t just “come” out of nowhere, because it is already all around you.

All you have to do is to look closely.

Look at things in different angles and perspectives.

Pay attention.

Question everything.

Let the little things inspire you.