Most things that have inspired me are already in my Cabinet of Curiosities, since they were things I was attracted to and that appealed to me in a certain way. I do tend to find inspirations in a lot of things, not necessarily related to anything I study, but if they inspire me to think or to write, I certainly find them relevant to my discipline. The majority of the things that have inspired me the most are either Bulgarian related or in Bulgarian language, which might prove different for other people to see or understand why I have chosen them as main inspirations, but this is a rather natural process, since my life in England has the length of less than a year, whilst my life in Bulgaria is longer than 21 years...
The main thing that has ever inspired me and continues to inspire me all the time is my older sister's writing. Before I wrote anything, whether poetry, an essay, an analysis, etc, it was her unbelievable talent I was surrounded with and even before having started writing I wanted to be as good, as creative and as original. Unfortunately, her writing, which I follow now, is mainly in Bulgarian, which is quite a shame, since no-one from a non-Bulgarian speaking country will not see the genius behind it. But I do.
She also inspires me as a person with her thinking and her outlook on life. We tend to discuss films all the time, which is a common passion of ours, and finding ourselves in other countries has made us different people (she has been living in Germany for the past five years) and gives us even more things in common. My sister is also a vegetarian and a person against animal violence and all kinds of animal products and is not one of those people who do that on words, she actually does research and writes letters, hoping to make at least a bit of a difference. For some people, writing letters might not seem a big act, but it is bigger than anything I have ever done, so I respect the efforts.
2. The Air Ace
The Air Ace is a short film, featured in my Cabinet of Curiosities, made by a Bulgarian student from the National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts. It tells the story of a frog that desperately wants to fly even for a little bit and sacrifices its life for the chance to see the sky from inside the beak of a stork.
Although not really related to writing, specifically, this film inspires me as a person and I tend to cry like a baby every time I see it. It is a piece of my life that has proven invaluable in showing me the difference between people who I want to befriend and people who would be 'useless' to me - although I don't consider the film to be difficult to understand, I had a conversation with one of my old classmates, who seemed to believe it is stupid to cry for a frog. She seemed to have found nothing deeper as a concept in the film, nothing besides a simple animated film about a frog and a stork.
To me, the film is all about dreams. Dreams that overwhelm you and make death worth it, even if it is for a glimpse of that dream. I have felt this way, I have had such big dreams, such big loves, that I was ready to sacrifice my life if I could just receive a minute of blue sky. And the feeling of relief and immense happiness, portrayed by the frog's tears, has been my idea of what the feeling of realising a big dream or receiving a response to a long desired love would be. This is the whole concept and the whole meaning of being alive - the search for this feeling, the search for those tears - tears of happiness that is so powerful that it feels like your body is burning or is being torn apart. Happiness so intense that you feel you might die from it. To me, life is all about peace and happiness, because nothing else matters. At the end of the day, if one has peace and is happy, everything else is irrelevant.
Violet Hill is a song from Coldplay's 2008 album 'Death and All His Friends'. This song, along with many other incredible Coldplay songs inspires me for no obvious reason and with no specific direction, just leaves a nice feeling of the desire to write or to do, to think and to smile.
The words of the song do portray a certain concept we have been discussing in the poetry society - do words have the power of music to deliver sadness and happiness and to change the tone suddenly. And although the discussion led to the conclusion that words are nowhere near music when it comes to that, I believe they have immense power to influence and words combined with music might sometimes have a greater effect than a person could imagine. Since music is one of those things that tend to remind us of people and places with no obvious reason, when they are combined with words that actually relate to the certain people and places, that always makes us nostalgic or whatever other intense feeling, when we hear the certain song.
Music is one of the biggest things in my life. I find different thoughts and feelings in every song I like to listen to and they make me want different things - some songs make me want to write, others make me cry, others just make me smile and feel optimistic for no apparent reason. Music is one of the most powerful things in the world and, when combined with words or images, it tends to leave long-lasting feelings in us.
Violet Hill reminds me of Italy and a time I have been the happiest ever. I was in Italy the first time I heard and saw the song and it tends to bring me back to happy times, when everything seemed easy and incredible, even though it wasn't. It brings me back feelings of immense happiness, love and peace, into a friendly atmosphere of warmth and pleasure. This song has the capability of actually transcending me into this other world, when I was happy (not necessarily happier, but simply happy), and this is the power of music I find inspirational.
4. Wheel of Time Wheel of Time is a series of twelve fantasy books written (even though not all of them completed) by the genius of Robert Jordan. Those books have 'supported' me in some of the hardest times of my life, as they paint a picture of another world, where everything is fantastical, and in a sense provide an escape from the real world.
Robert Jordan's writing is incredible. Although I have read the books in Bulgarian and not in their original language, the endlessness of his imagination is simply incredible. The way he is able to follow the development of each of the many characters in the books and portray them as 'real' people - having their good and bad sides, taking their decisions, living with the consequences - it inspires me and makes me jealous, as I am unable to follow a character's structure after two pages, when I have tried to write stories.
The concept in the books is quite interesting and it touches upon deeper issues about good vs. bad and how they are both integrated in the human nature and not necessarily versus one another; about love and how love is not supposed to be selfish, but could be shared, as a human being is capable of equally loving more than one person; about war, about 'special powers', although not necessarily in the concept of magical skills, about unbreakable bonds, whether in friendship or love. Those books inspire me to find something fantastical in every simple thing around me and picture the world as this incredible place, which could exist only behind the curtain, but behind the curtain is where only I can see and is only where I can see.
5. Песен за човека 'Песен за човека' (Song of Man) is a Bulgarian poem, written by the genius of Nikola Vapcarov. Unfortunately, no translation could be found in the internet, which is why non-Bulgarian speakers will not be able to be submerged into the incredible atmosphere of Vapcarov's poetry, but this specific poem certainly inspires me. It tells the story of a man that did a wrong deed and was sent to prison. However, in prison, he met 'people' and turned from a 'beast' into a 'human being' and started thinking about the unfairness of life. Afterwards, when he is taken to the gallows, he realises that fear is useless in the face of death and then he finds peace and light in his soul and starts singing and his song 'defeats' darkness and even death.
The same concept exists in many of Vapcarov's poetry, as he writes mostly about faith and the willingness to die for a cause and how physical death in this case is not important, as the soul of the person who died for a great cause never dies and the optimism and faith and the revolutionary spirit transcend death and overcome physical human limits. In his other great poem, 'Letter', the last verse says: (about the sun) "And let it burn my wings as the wings of a small butterfly - I won't swear, I won't cry, because I know it's time to die. But to die when the Earth is shaking off its poisonous mould, this is a song, yes, this is a song".
So much passion and belief could be found in his poetry that I don't see a way how anyone could not find it inspirational. Some of the best essays I have ever written were based on Vapcarov's genius or at least on the borrowed feeling and atmosphere of his poetry that I have portrayed through other concepts. He also inspires me to write poetry in a different way and it is obvious how my earlier verse is much darker than my later one, which is interwoven with the atmosphere of fearlessness and faith, because physical death doesn't mean anything, when your spirit is strong enough to overcome it.
Maybe some of my inspirations are not specifically related to journalism or media or the way they inspire me seems irrelevant, but if I feel differently because of these things and I write differently or think differently, that is an influence by itself on the way I approach writing, journalism or the world. Because of the books/poetry I have read, I am in love with writing and that has pushed me in the direction of journalism. Because of the films I've seen I love film and thinking about film and writing about film, which convinces me I am fit for film journalism and also gives me an outlook on film as a media object. Even if I have been inspired only on a personal level, to be a better person, to be happier or to believe, my writing has certainly become different and perhaps more mature, which has influenced the way I think of my life and anything in it.
