Where passion at?

One of my teachers, Roy Williams wrote this in his weekly Monday Morning Memo,

You cannot instruct a person to have enthusiasm any more than you can instruct them to give birth to a redheaded child.

The person must first be inspired.

Inspiration is what you give them.
Enthusiasm is what they give you.

People inhale inspiration and exhale enthusiasm.
They cannot give you enthusiasm until you give them inspiration.
Neither is a product of instruction.

There is a time to instruct and a time to inspire.
We often think we’re doing one when we’re actually doing the other.

Is your enthusiasm contagious or is it contained?
Are you inspiring those around you?

Exploding with ideas and thoughts, as I am often left with after a weekly Roy dose, it forced questions about the variable affecting inspiration. If enthusiasm is caused by inspiration, what causes inspiration?

Do they hold hands drawing each of them out completely dependently or is there a third gravitating body that causes the whole thing to explode into its riches?

The light went on. I saw it in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. Come to think of it, I see it in most Sci Fi movies. 

Star Wars I was released to the public on May 19,1999. The filming and planning for this movie would have happened over the previous two years (from 1997-1999), yet there is a piece of technology that exists in this movie that did not exist at that time.

Apple invented iPad and released it on April 3, 2010. Its compact iPod grandfather was released two and a half years after the release of The Phantom Menace on October 23, 2001.

But the iPad exists in this movie, ten years before its invention.

Cell phones, microwave ovens, global positioning systems all exist because film thought of them first.

I'm still waiting for my flying car. But that's a discussion for another time.

Is it life imitating art? Or art imitating life?

Who cares!

We get inspiration from art.
Art is imagination.

Inspiration is a derivative of imagination.

It doesn't matter how we feed our imagination. It can come from movies, literature, music, theatre, art, nature, bears dancing on one leg, kids playing with a hula hoop, elephants singing dressed in a tutu or a simple poem.

Imagination is the heart of all inspiration. To be inspired or inspiring, you must let your inner beast run wild through the fresh grass, picking up smells, thoughts and ideas someone else discarded.

Imagination is a dream.

Inspiration is a translation.

Enthusiasm is the end result.

Together, the three form a cyclical triumvirate fostering an endless supply of passion.

Our lives are nothing without imagination. To squash it is the greatest sin we'll ever commit to ourselves.