I realize #32

Restriction kills inspiration,

and inspiration -the ability to go beyond yourself in your work- is what enables one's unique creative expression to manifest itself, and that is where the true value of the artist lies. It is his/her only true power; the ability to access inspiration, that invisible but potent force that guides and directs and touches and leaves its mark on both the artist and the work and enables tremendous personal and actual accomplishment.

What we call talent seems to me to be nothing more than the intuitive observation that someone (perhaps ourselves) possesses the ability to 'plug into' inspiration and deliver creative work that transcends the commonplace, the bland, the indifferent and in some way forms a connection with the people coming in contact with it. Without allowing inspiration to work itself through him or her the artist must settle with imitation, a mere performer of premeditated gestures and applier of intellectual concepts, a slave to all the tools he has acquired ostensibly for the purpose of enabling his own creativity to manifest itself. A pitiful and endlessly frustrating predicament.

The artist's job is to obtain self-mastery at least where inspiration is concerned, otherwise he can never flourish. He or she must realize the causes of them restricting the flow of their inspiration and instead learn to ride on that wave that leads them closer to themselves, closer to their artistic vision, their artistic truth.

Without inspiration there is only imitation. It may be such a successful imitation that it'll fool some, but it has no vitality, it is lacking in true meaning and purpose for existence and such it is but an orphan in time, it is ephemeral and lacks the substance to impact anything long-term. The only way for the artist to guard against this is to give himself entirely to the creative force, open the gates of his mind to inspiration without judgment, without expectation, without attachment to the outcome and allow it full reign in his work. Then, in the eyes of others who do not know how or will not surrender to this force that all readily recognize behind every great work of art, the artist becomes Godlike.