Christmas Realizer - what gift would you give to your inspiration?
How would you thank the people who have inspired you?
This edition of Curious Realizer is renamed Christmas Realizer because it talks about giving gifts. As a writer, artist or maker your work is all about giving your art, your ideas or your point of view to someone else (or many people, in the case of a newsletter or blog). Sometimes it’s a financial transaction to make this happen, other times the only costs are time and attention.
There are a few people out there who seem to spontaneously develop the need to make things and share them with the world. But many of us are inspired by another person’s work and that inspiration leads us to undertake our own making projects. Sometimes you’re thanking those who inspire you (heroes or villains) through financial support but often that’s a flat, soulless reward which passes through intermediaries.
So I have an idea for you: if you could thank someone who has inspired you and there were no limits on the kind of gift that you could give, what would you give them? Plus, you could give it to them in person.
For example, would you give Vincent Van Gogh the wisdom to leave his ear alone? Would you give all of the rock musicians who died via substance and alcohol abuse (Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Brian Jones, Keith Moon, John Bonham, Bon Scott, etc.) a chance to sidestep their fates and get their lives together? Would you call the police on Mark David Chapman and save John Lennon from an early grave? Would you give George R. R. Martin the focus and planning to allow him to finally finish A Song of Ice and Fire?
Here are the gifts that I wish I could give as a means of thanking people who have inspired me:
Andy Partridge of XTC (British New Wave/pop band): Partridge has written and performed some of my favorite music. I would offer him a cure for tinnitus. A number of years ago Andy was in a recording studio and got blasted in the ears with extremely high volume sound. The result was excruciating tinnitus that has dogged him for years. He uses special equipment to moderate (but not cure) the effects of tinnitus. For quality of life, if nothing else, I would love to take that burden from him.
Stephen King (novelist): I would offer him the opportunity to avoid the near fatal van collision he suffered through in 1999. His recovery was long and painful, costing him many months of output and no doubt the accident left a permanent mark on his life. For all of his writing that I’ve enjoyed over the years I’d give him the chance to avoid that accident, if I could.
Giving Helen Keller the gift of five fully working senses seems obvious.
Sparing Christa McAuliffe from her tragic death also seems like a worthwhile gift. Imagine if she’d never been in the Challenger explosion, how she might have inspired millions of children to become astronauts.
And so on.
Over to you: if you could give someone a gift to thank them for how they’ve inspired you, what gift would you give them?
I'd give John Kennedy Toole the knowledge that his writing would take off, so he'd stick around to see it happen and perhaps write some more.
Such a creative question! I’d gift modern psychiatry to Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath. I guess the question is, would they still create their masterpieces?