How to be over-inspired

One might call it a case of "over-inspiration." During my teaching hiatus this semestral break I decided to re-energize by staying in the city and de-cluttering my existence.

First I ransacked my mother’s bookshelves. After a lifetime of reading great literature written by alcoholic authors on the verge of a nervous breakdown, I changed tack. It was time for a little more New Age/ Self-Help/ Spiritual, not Religious/ East meets West/ You Are The Universe Enlightenment: Deepak Chopra’s Seven Spiritual Laws of Success; Kathleen Van Kieft’s Innersource: Channeling Your Unlimited Self; Marianne Williamson’s Illuminata, Paulo Cuelho’s The Alchemist, plus Godwin Chu’s Radical Change Through Communication in Mao’s China sneaked in for a bit of socialist flair. I read all of that within a week.

Serendipitously, the mass media provided me with pop cultural stimulation as well. The Jennifer Lopez Story on cable to bring out my inner diva.

West-East Magazine for "Generasian" empowerment. The film Mulholland Drive for that out-of-the-box David Lynch vision. The Ateneo Basketball Miracle and the Mikee Cojuangco victory for personal motivation. And Juan Luna’s controversial painting "Parisian Life" for some patriotic oomph.

In other words, I went panic-buying in the marketplace of ideas. I wanted to capture that same moment in The Sound of Music when an over-inspired Julie Andrews turned her bedroom curtains into playclothes for the Von Trapp brats—to the consternation of the under-inspired Captain Von Trapp. And then I asked myself whether it was possible to have a bit too much inspiration.

When you’re a single, twentysomething Manileña consciously fighting stress and ennui, creative paranoia is almost the inevitable outcome. It’s a defense mechanism against an anchorless existence. It’s fighting for air.

The root word of inspiration is the Latin spirare — to breathe. When one is over-inspired, it’s like over-breathing. Hyperventilation brings about an overabundance of carbon dioxide in your blood, leading to fainting spells. Over-inspiration is pretty much the same thing. It brings about an overabundance of wind in your brain, leading to mental hurricanes.

Let me give you an example. If you were to ask me the question "How do you define inspiration?" right this minute I would have no choice but to give you an over-inspired reply. The whole song-and-dance, with accompanying storyboard, props, and special effects.

I would say, in my best Marianne Williamson voice: When I think of inspiration, I think of the Queen of Inspiration. None other than Oprah Winfrey.

Say what? You might ask.

Yes, I reply. Imagine it. Picture it. Dream it. The great inventor of the Industrial Age, Thomas Edison, with a light bulb floating on top of his head. He is a guest on the Oprah Winfrey Show. He is stating the words "Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration."

Right across him Deepak Chopra materializes. In a soothing tone, he disagrees. "I don’t think so, Brother Thomas. At the moment of inspiration, one need not work hard and sweat. If one has found one’s own unique talent, endless creativity, success, affluence and abundance would manifest themselves effortlessly. Without a drop of perspiration."

The audience gasps: the Guru of New Age debating with the Hero of the Industrial Age! Oprah’s ratings shoot up to unprecedented heights at that very moment. The whole world is tuning in.

Little does Oprah know that right in her studio audience is Metro Manila Development Authority chairman Bayani Fernando. He is in Chicago to attend a seminar on urban planning, and dropped in on the show in the hope of asking for Chopra’s autograph (he is a big fan). But he, too, is mesmerized by the ongoing debate on the proper ratio between inspiration and perspiration.

And then he thought to himself: This is precisely what’s wrong with Metro Manila! Too much perspiration, too little inspiration!

He leaves the show in a hurry and catches the next flight to Manila. On the plane he thinks of ways to make Manila a truly inspiring city.

Over the next few weeks, in a fit of over-inspiration, he plants 10 million trees, knocks down carparks to make way for real city parks, devises an ingenious public transport system, provides decent housing so that people may live where they work.

He licks the traffic problem, and relieves the stress of millions of drivers and commuters, unblocking their latent creativity. He curbs pollution, making millions of people breathe freely again. Spirare!

Suddenly, the city’s artists, teachers, students, writers, learn how to inhale and exhale properly for the first time in their lives. From this renewed city air they learn to intuit their higher selves. They begin to walk around with light bulbs floating on top of their heads. Beauty! Truth! Freedom! Love!

As millions flock to the theaters, the museums, the restaurants, the cafes, the bookstores, the university lectures, the crime rate dramatically goes down. The disparity between rich and poor narrows. The hand-to-mouth existence turns into a living-in-the-moment existence.

Manila has become an Open City of the New Age kind. Free, unblocked, open, hungry for innovation. Manileños have learned to dream again! Manila is a city that inspires!

And then you wake up. You look at the light bulb of your bedside lamp and you say, "Thomas Edison, you were wrong. It’s 50 percent inspiration, 50 percent perspiration. The inspiration is divine, it’s from the soul of the universe; the perspiration is human, it’s from the way humans deal with one another. The 50-50 happens when people inspire each other, when they help each other dream."

End of reverie.

Next week I’ll be resuming my teaching duties, with my inspiration-perspiration ratio hopefully at less hallucinatory, more realistic levels—just enough to get my students inspired, just enough to keep them dreaming. But in any case, I know I should just let the inspiration overflow. No matter how I look at it, with the city in disarray and the world in turmoil, you can never have too much inspiration. Over-inspired is always better than not inspired at all.