• Shawn
    13.2k
    Inspiration is what motivates us in the morning to do better than what we have done the day before. Inspiration is an important human feeling that gives us drive and motivation to do and be a better.

    Inspiration is devoid of resentment or jealousy. It's a pure feeling.

    Therefore, what gives you inspiration or motivation to be a better person?

    For me, it would be Elon Musk. His daring ambition, although guided by reason and rationality, give me hope for a better future where mutually assured destruction isn't a factor that enables our existence. Science for the sake of science is what drives his ambition and I emulate his desire for science driving economics activity instead of the mere satisfaction of wants and desires by market forces. His desire is guided by reason; but, transcends it in terms of the end goal of what results from that desire, namely the selfless goal of providing humanity another home where nuclear weapons will never be developed. It will be a new starting place where humanity can bring all the lessons learned from planet Earth to Mars.

    I intend to go to Mars one day. That is the end purpose of my existence. Noble goals and lofty ideals will dominate the discussion instead of being resource restricted on planet Earth due to the inability of nations to work together. We will be able to start over and apply the lessons we have learned from Earth to another planet. Nations will not govern the activity of the population; but, rather be lambasted and frowned upon.

    Who else feels this way?
  • T Clark
    13.9k
    Inspiration is what motivates us in the morning to do better than what we have done the day before. Inspiration is an important human feeling that gives us drive and motivation to do and be a better.Posty McPostface

    I'll tell you what inspires me, but that's not the same as what motivates me. Inspiration for me brings a sense of peace, pleasure. A feeling that the universe is a good place where I belong. Here are some things:

    • Nelson Mandela, Vaclav Havel, Lech Walesa, Corazon Aquino, Desmond Tutu, Barak Obama, Mikhail Gorbachev
    • People who show me something new and change my way of seeing things. Sorry to be personal - StreetlightX, Apokrisis, Fdrake, Timeline
    • Great teachers who are still in my mind 45 years later - Mr. Proctor and Ms. Coepke from high school; Professors Boyd and D'andrea from college
    • Ideas - good ideas, bad ideas, bring them on
    • The fearlessness of my children. They are so much better than I am.
    • Fried sea scallops. No, seriously.
  • fishfry
    3.4k
    Edison said genius was 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. If you wait to be inspired you'll never get anything done. Or as Flaubert said, "Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be wild and original in your work."
  • Wosret
    3.4k




    He said that because of all of the slave driving of his employees that he took all of the credit for their inventions from.
  • Shawn
    13.2k


    Edison? Pfft, what about Nicola Tesla? The man was supremely brilliant.
  • Wosret
    3.4k
    Sorry about the videoes, can't help myself...
  • Shawn
    13.2k


    The guy was a little off the norm; but, it's hard to find something that would be off-putting about the man.
  • Wosret
    3.4k


    I didn't mean it to be like a criticism, or putting him down. I just thought it was funny is all. We all put Edison down though, fuck that guy.
  • Nils Loc
    1.4k
    I'm spent and resigned but my body still breathes for me.

    I'm inspired by the anxious promise and fears (the apprehension) of degradation, poverty, illness, alienation and just hell generally. (I guess this isn't precisely inspiring since it requires a 'pure state devoid of resentment or jealousy.')

    Mythopoetic drama, narratives and the visual arts are inspiring!

    Cosmic horror or zen tranquility as the decorative overlay. (Sur)real des(s)erts, for(rests) and v(o)ids. Bosch's final panel in triptych, The Garden of Earthly Delights .

    A bad metaphor is Lamarchand's puzzle box or the Crimson Behelit or a personal transport vehicle. Everyone is wearing a Behelit, or manipulating a black box, or an artifact (vehicle) that consumes or channels a spirit (energy) toward a distant heat death (expiration). Stuff comes out of the box (like heat, and karmic output/input, and more object(ive) ordering means at trade off by a missing cost-benefit analysis) and folks deal with it as they do. It is what it is.

    HP Lovecraft has nothing on Daniel Dennett's Neo Darwininan steam punk cyber memetic automata world building from undead twirly macro molecules story. Oh the memetic horror! of substrate neutral evolution by (mindless) natural selection.
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