At one of the places I worked there used to be motivational posters on the wall. I know that most of the quotes and pictures are meant to inspire but I’d really question who gets inspired by a pretty picture with a cheap phrase underneath. If that is the sort of stuff that inspires you then you really have to question how long your job will be around before a robot takes your place. Inspiration can come from many places and I’m sure that somewhere, someone, might have been inspired by a pithy quote or cool picture. They may have even created an ad campaign to sell toilet paper so that people can wipe their backsides with the glee of the pithy quote.
I think that inspiration is actually more like a playful kitten stalking a fly. The fly is just sitting around, minding its own fly-y business, taking a break between eating garbage and flying up people’s noses. The kitten is creeping up on the fly, thinking it is a lion about to pounce on an unsuspecting prey, that the kitten can’t be seen, despite the vigorous tail twitching in the air. As the kitten pounces, the fly, calmly, buzzes off to see if it can annoy someone, the kitten comes crashing down, bringing the urn with your dad’s ashes in it, smashing onto the floor. On the rare occasion that the kitten catches the fly and doesn’t destroy valuable items around the house, that is inspiration. The one off moment when your brain comes up with the most amazing idea that has ever occurred. An idea that will reshape humanity. An idea that will see you showered in champagne, chocolate and high priced hookers.
An idea that will have to wait until morning, because you were just about to fall asleep.
See also: John Cleese on Creativity
Tyson Adams 
The John Cleese video is one of my favourite go-to’s on the topic of creativity 🙂
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I get tempted to play it to my managers whenever they glare at me for telling jokes in meetings.
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When I worked as a locksmith on the road I did a fair amount of rekeying commercial property when businesses moved out of a space. Usually it was easy to tell if a business was expanding and moving to a bigger and better location or shutting down for good by how much was left behind.
One thing I found is that when a business goes bust in a big way–the owners leaving furniture and stacks of unpaid bills and personal possessions in their haste to get the hell out of Dodge before the sheriffs showed up–they inevitably left those “Successories” posters on the walls. It got to be a running joke with my coworkers, “The new tenants were putting up ‘Achievement’ when I handed them the keys–we’ll be locking them out in three months.”
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That is an awesome story, Misha. Thanks for sharing.
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