In a World of Noise, Essay Example

Inspiration comes in different forms for different people. Mine comes in childish bursts of carefree wonder tempered by a brutally rational mind. When I become too much for even me to handle, there are a few places of refuge: a playground, a church, and a field. They may be unorthodox locales for inspiration, but inspiration itself is not a part of the routine. If I go the same places, life becomes stagnant.

Playgrounds have always been a personal favorite thinking niche. There was one, in particular, which housed a red and white rocket with spiraling staircases on the inside and four levels. Even when I was a young child it was a tight squeeze. I would pack one of those tiny kid’s backpacks with a snack, such as a packet of apples or some chips and scale to the top. Where others would get distracted by the slide halfway up, my mission was clear: to climb the rocket. To me it might as well have been Mount Olympus. In a world of noise on the streets and a constant running critique of every aspect of life running through my head, the top of the rocket was the tip of the sword, the momentary cease-fire of tribulation.

In this calm, I watched cars fly by like ants and remembered the good times at the ballpark with my parents. I remembered asking my grandparents what the speed limit was and then innocently- or at least it seemed so- asking what speed they were travelling at. I remembered life as if it happened to a stranger and could feel the pull of these types of memories that make me a part of a big picture.

I always felt a power up there, felt like I was immortal myself, looking down at my little pet ants going about their business. I never wanted to be one of them; I just wanted to be me. Where most kids think about birthday gifts and sleepovers, my time in the rocket was preoccupied with the future and the spirit in which I wanted to live my life. That spirit became the guiding inspiration for my life plan.

Still, when my mind had reached a roadblock, I would sit in church and watch the light reflect through the stained glass windows and dance across the heavens of ceiling space in the cozy church. Did people really look like that? What did that symbol mean? Did God really intend for us to interpret his will at all? The beginning of inspiration for me was the inner dialogue on the conflicts of God and man, heaven and earth, blood and water. One poem described a flooded church as bringing the serpents to communion with the saints. I remember that image. That is what church feels like to me- duality.

I do not believe that God’s presence is limited to four arbitrary walls and some stained glass. In fact, leaving them is part of the freedom to think and feel. There are moments where peace is found standing solitarily and just examining. In a field I zero in on a large thing, then a smaller aspect of that, then its smaller aspect, and so on. To freeze a moment in time I could build a wall against the world, build a one-way conduit to divine communication.

Out there it is easy to believe that God is in all things. Several Native American tribes believed that the gods were partially one with nature. I do not know if any lived around there, but there I feel like a mainstream American, a serpent in communion with the saintly, noble Native Americans of the past. But that time is past, and a grown person still and thoughtful in a playground rocket, a church, or a field, is just weird… but so is inspiration.