Rainy Day Healing

 

Making My Peace … with enthusiasm

 

Creative energy gushes from my sudden bout of enthusiasm. It’s like an explosion of music and movement in my brain, the tempo so fast that I trip over myself to keep up. That’s what’s happening in my head, but my enthusiasm is really guided by my heart.

So, it seems to me that there is an order to my enthusiasm: first, the heart; second, the brain; third, the movement of my body. It is this enthusiasm that is inspiring me to write creatively, and to announce to friends that I’m writing another novel. In time, other emotions will come – writer’s block, the pressure of daily writing, and so on – but for now, I’ve got oodles of enthusiasm.

What is happening in my brain so that I can learn how to (mostly) maintain this feeling? What is enthusiasm?

 

 

Enthusiasm is intense enjoyment, intense interest in something. For me now, it is intense interest in writing, in being creative. I love the feeling of being creative. I thought about it during a thunderstorm last night. Who is not in awe of thunder? It occurred to me that enthusiasm is electricity. Enthusiasm is electric. Electronic. Energetic. Ecstatic. Eagerness. Esprit.

It’s like the buzz of a crowd when individuals compactly, collectively, simultaneously cheer in unison, all on the same wavelength, all roaring the same cheer. This forceful accumulation of one-breath fills my sails with a mighty wind of enthusiasm.

I take joy in this enthusiasm. I take joy in beginning my new creative work. The starting pistol, the burst from the runner’s blocks. Sure, the pace may wane over the long distance, but for now, I’ve harnessed the power to spring from the blocks. Like turning up the jets on my burners. Electric charge. My own personal flux capacitor: “one point twenty-one jigowatts,” says Doc Emmett Brown.

Now let’s be honest. Turning up the jets won’t help me be enthusiastic if the fuel is low. I might need to slow the pace to conserve the gas. Fuelling up the passion won’t help me be enthusiastic if the flame is low. I need to keep the campfires burning.

 

 

Keep the campfires burning. I know – the song is actually Keep the Home Fires Burning. It was an inspirational first World War song, and also featured in the 1981 movie Chariots of Fire about British athletes in the 1924 Paris Olympic Games – with the lines from William Blake’s poem And did those feet in ancient time.

 

Bring me my Bow of burning gold:

Bring me my Arrow of desire:

Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold:

Bring me my Chariot of fire!

 

 

The chariot of fire is defined as “the whirlwind into heaven” – “divine energy.” Dada Vaswani said that “enthusiasm is the greatest asset you can possess, for it can take you further than money, power, or influence.”

Is my enthusiasm misplaced? Gordon Parks advised people to “act enthusiastic until you make it a habit.”

Is it better to have an enthusiastic start than not to have any enthusiasm at all? The bigger problem is the inability to have enthusiasm about anything, to not be fired up about anything, to have no dream at all. So, let’s separate the dreamer from the dream.

 

Making my peace with enthusiasm, I learned the following:

• To wake with enthusiasm
• To use enthusiasm to ignite passion, to have a purpose in life
• To crank the wheel of enthusiasm to get the work done joyfully
• To share enthusiasm
• To set the world on fire

 

 

 

 

Martina Nicolls: Rainy Day Healing – MAKING MY PEACE