Sometimes, as I sit alone at night, I feel, what you might call inspiration. It's a strong desire, a need, to express myself. Be it poetry, a story, art, or even a simple letter, I feel I need to express myself. At the same time though, I doubt my ability to speak the truth in what I write. Especially when the subject is love.

There was a time, when my life was on a different course, that I felt I could write about love. When I experienced it during the day, I could write about it at night. Now though, while I have a strong desire to love, and while I can remember the last time I shared love, and while all my heart can feel love, there is no one person in my life to direct it toward. What all this means is that I have all this inspiration inside me, yet I have no focal point to release it. My poems become vague generalizations, my art lacks soul, and my letters become hard to follow.

So I think, perhaps I can recall past experiences and use those for my subjects. Perhaps I can write a poem about past loves. Unfortunately, this only makes things worse. I start to ponder over things that I had already set to rest, relationships which I had finally gotten over. My creative urge is changed from a need to express my feelings, to trying to feel things that are gone. It seems that although these memories are all things that make me who I am, when I try to bring them back, its like making light of them.

We all grow. We have experiences, we make mistakes, we read, we watch others, we think though our problems, we work though our depressions, and in the end we simply move on. We can never go back. That would be the wrong direction. If anything we should have learned that we need to look to the future.

But what happens if the future has not happened yet? When our daily life become repetitive? When we try to experience the next thing, yet all our paths become dead ends? When we feel creative, what then do we write about? How then do express ourselves?

Some nights, I feel creativity coming on, yet I try to ignore it. I go to bed and lie awake telling myself I need to go to sleep. When morning comes I find I have not rested. Ignoring my need to express myself has only made things worse.

So, now I wonder, what is this, "creativity"? Why does it plague me? My roomate does not seem to have this problem. Nor has anyone else I've know complained about having this problem. Is it they simply supress it, do they have there own release, or is it simply unusual, this trouble I seem to have?

There is one possibility I have thought of. Perhaps this creative urge is simply energy. In some, it stronger than others. Athletic types are filled with this energy, and it is released though a hard day of training and competing. Entertainers release themselves through their performances. Others who are filled with this energy each have there own releases that work for them.

As children we are filled with this energy. We find we can play all day, and still be bursting with it before out parents finally get us into bed. As we grow older, our teachers try to direct this energy into more productive things. Unfortunately, for some of us, our energy levels begin to decrease. This could be for any number of reasons. Lack of self esteem, decrease in confidence, depression, or simply the inability to do things we were once able to do cause some to slowly loose energy.

Following the same line of thought, perhaps we could explain some violent crimes. Lets take a man filled with energy. He, unlike his friends does not have a release. The nights come, he feels creative. He has no way to express himself. Day after day the energy in him builds up. No longer can he hold it in. Simple anoyances become easy targets, easy releases. Perhaps he finds temperary relief though drugs or alcohol. Rather than release his energy, these substances simply increase it, or if nothing else, help him forget the reasons why he should not do certain things, or else simply lessen their significance, the effect it will have on others.

But that energy is the key. We all need it to prevent ourselves from loosing intrest in life. But just as important as the energy, in the need to be able harness, focus, and then release it in a positive way.

This energy would not simply be chemical. In other words it would not just be a level of carbohydrates or blood sugar, but instead be a combination of the body and the spirit. The body being just that, the chemical aspect. The spirit, being in refrence to a soul, the inner drive if you like. Is this a religious question? Perhaps it could be taken as that, but that is not it's limit. The spirit, or soul, could simply the the thought process, or what ever it is that allows us to : consider, contemplate, reason, create, imagine, enjoy. This force, this you, could hypothetically be measured, to determine the energy of your soul. Then in conjunction with your body's energy, you might be able to determine and over all energy level.

Of course, one could over ride the other. Through the use of drugs, the chemical energy could enhance or depress the spiritial energy, but then it would be the spiritial energy which would break the dependancy, or even prevent the body from ever using, these drugs. On that same thought, one energy could be used in a positive way, to influence the other. A cup of coffee to wake you up, or a positive attitude to fight an illness.

Then again, other outside sources might influence the spiritual energy. Perhaps your favorite song pulls your spirit up. For me, I know nothing gets me going like a good Red Hot Chili Pepper song. And of course the reverse is also possable. In eithor case, the music does not change you chemical balance, but instead changes your 'spiritual energy'.

Perhaps, the final conclusion we can make from this is that, creativity is simply a way to harness, focus, and release a chemical and spiritual energy which may be effected by an number of outside forces, and if not kept under control and released properly has the possability of causing to go the opposite way we might otherwise want to go.