Got Inspiration?

What is your daily metaphor? What helps you to understand human behavior and why things happen? What serves as your manual for life?

For many it is their holy book; the Bible, the Koran, the Talmud. Maybe it's the more modern book of Mormon or the fully ancient Hindu Vedas, Dhammapada, the Bhagavad Gita or the Tao Te Ching. Some find inspiration for living from paintings or sculpture, some from music or nature. Some people piece together their direction from a number of these places. The quality of a good source of inspiration is its applicability to our daily lives, how well it touches the personal experience we deem to be most real, most meaningful and how thoroughly it renews and recreates us. To the extent authors and artists can do this they are successful.

True art though comes not necessarily from an attempt to inspire, but from an attempt to express. Discovering a truth deep within and uncovering a way to channel that discovery into a tangible form is artistry.

So this brings me to one source of my inspiration. While I do find truths in the Tao, in the Gita and even a good metaphor in the Bible (if not taken literally), I find regular daily inspiration in the lyrics and music of the Dave Matthews Band. There are other artists out there that capture 'it' occasionally. Coldplay for instance, maybe Iron and Wine. I enjoy Death Cab for Cutie for much the same reason, but DMB is on another plane. They consistently produce meaningful metaphors and spin them into art.

Really? A rock band you say?

Really. Just listen. Really listen. Ask yourself what some of the lyrics mean. Then you can judge. So starting now, I'm going to blog some of my favorite bits of inspiration. Some from here, some from there, but many will be coming from The Book of Dave.