These are excerpts from the author’s book “Deep,” which contains eight of his small books published in the form of Wisdom Literature covering different aspects of life: Facing troublemakers, dealing with pain, personal financial issues, gastronomy, reading, criticizing, inspiring, and feeling always good to go.

Series 7: Inspire.

Practical Inspiration and Emotional Inspiration

• The nature of inspiration is probably similar in all fields, regardless of whether some are known to be associated with inspiration more than others. Inspiration is more closely related to the nature of the person than to the subject matter of the inspiration.

• Emotion is deeply involved even in practical inspiration, at least with regard to the great passion that is essential to obtaining deep inspiration, whether purely scientific or practical.

• When philosophers see the depth of the rhetorical images and meanings that flow from poetry, they wonder how genius found its way to that inspired poet! With that in mind, which one is wronged: genius or inspiration?

• When people admire a poem, they will probably be amazed at the inspiration that helped the poet to create that particular work. When people admire the work of a scientist, they will probably be amazed at the genius that allowed the scientist to produce that output. With that in mind, which one is wronged: the poet or the scientist?

• Just as artists and writers owe inspiration when producing their masterpieces of creativity, inspiration owes them because, more than scientists and philosophers, it is artists and writers who exalt the value of inspiration and give it its unique charm.

• The job description of artists and writers is not based on inspiration; rather, their masterpieces of creativity are free from the restrictions of any job description.

• The masterpieces of creativity of scholars and thinkers are among the blessings of inspiration as well, but they know how to deal with inspiration while complying with a job description. They may not feel the inspiration directly, or they may call it by another term more appropriate to the nature of their work.

• Genius seems to be synonymous with inspiration connected to the mind, apart from the magic of the soul with which inspiration seems more closely connected.

• Talented scholars and thinkers in the arts or literature are thought to have the deepest understanding of the difference between genius and inspiration. Their artistic and literary output, however, is not necessarily the highest that embodies the creative fusion of genius and inspiration. Producing unique masterpieces of creativity does not necessarily require accurate knowledge of the details of the concept of genius and the mechanism of inspiration.

• The genuinely inspired person does not care to be called a genius.