When we read a Harry Potter book or listen to Stephen Covey or
listen to the Beatles, we often feel that there is a direct
connection between the artist and us. That the creator of the
work and the receiver have a straight and self contained
connection.
But it is a fact that an author or singer is inspired by events
involving other people. Those other people may have been inspired
by yet other men, women and children who have moved through their
lives. You, the presently inspired one, in turn will influence
and become a life inspiration to your colleagues and descendants.
This chain of inspiration is the heart of civilization.
All scientific and social advances are catalyzed and carried
forward by inspired links. That is why it is essential to expose
young children to great ideals at a time in their lives when they
are the fertile seeding ground of germinating thought. A
childhood wasted is an adulthood laid to waste.
Even if you are feeling middle aged and jaded, you can pick up a
book and read. You can attend motivational sessions. Agreed,
sometimes those celebrity lectures are a rip-off, but you must
choose wisely. Above all, you must think for yourself, for as the
Buddha said As you think, so you shall be. After listening to
everyone else, listen to your own voice, the one coming from
inside!
You owe it to civilization and to life itself to be an
inspiration for others around you. Without great role models, a
community shrivels up and becomes decadent. If you are neither
connecting to great men and women of the past nor inspiring the
young ones for the future, you are not playing your role in this
Universe!
Thanks to the Internet, vast inspirational resources are
available at a mouse click. But as in the movie Matrix, Morpheus
tells Neo I can only show you the door. You are the one that has
to walk through it. He is just repeating what ancient sages have
been saying for ages.
So go forth, walk through the door of knowledge and be inspired
and act. Only then will you have taken your rightful place in the
Chain of Inspiration. Be the inspiration others need today.
