Flashes of brillance

We are all sealed in our own little melancholy.
      - Taylor Hardin

Cloud-to-ground lightning bolts are a common phenomenon—about 100 strike Earth’s surface every single second—yet their power is extraordinary. Each bolt can contain up to one billion volts of electricity.

Colorado receives nearly 500,000 lightning strikes a year, equaling a strike to every 4.8 miles. I cannot calculate those numbers down to the second - but I know it is a lot.  Sometimes, in unguarded moments, flashes of brilliance strike me so bright and awe inspiring, I cannot get it down on paper quick enough.  The inspiration flashes through me and out of me quickly and dissipates rapidly: if I do not capture it in written form, I will never be able to re-create it later.  Like lightning, it strikes then fades away.

Hot flashes of surging electricity make my fingers itch and I have to stop what I am doing and make a note.  I cannot wait until I can sit at a computer and start fleshing it out.  If I am lucky, the image is still in my mind, and I can get it on paper exactly as I saw it.  Most of the time, however, the picture emerges much different from the original image.

I feel as though a bolt of creativity has struck me.  Wonderfully bright ideas flash through my mind, strike with force and violence (one billion volts of electricity will do that), and as fast as the flash comes, the brightness dims, and I am left with aftermath and wreckage. 

If we could remove the destructive force behind lighting and the damage this phenomenon causes, we would be left with the brilliant flash.  That is how I think of my inspirations.  I tend to act on the inspiration (the flash), then when I actually take a moment to look at the inspiration, I am left with an impression, a ghost image in my mind, but it will not focus.  Like looking at a bright window for a few seconds, then looking away.  The negative image burned into the retina and all you can see is the backward and oppositely colored image. 

Then when my vision clears, I see the destruction and burned rock and landscape.  This blog is an example of a brilliant flash of inspiration, and now I deal with the debris and emotional fall-out.  I have created for myself a way to release my inspired energy, yet am fearful I will fall way short of my mark and my goal.  (Which is total world domination… ha, just kidding).

What about you gentle readers?  Ever have a flash of brilliance and decided to act upon it?  How did it turn out?  Did you enjoy the process and the eventual outcome?