16
FROM EXHILARATION came inspiration. All I mean by that is that the exhilaration I felt at having stood up to Mr. Summers put me in a state of mind that encouraged the development of an idea that came to me at about the same time. Inspiration is, I think, nothing more than the name we give after the fact to the arrival of those of our ideas that turn out well. On this subject, Porky asked me not long ago, “Where the heck do our ideas come from, after all? What makes them take one form rather than another? You know how it is some days—nothing seems to go right: the computer-controlled microwave deep-fat fryers I ordered will not boil oil no matter how high I set the thermostats, and every time I try to call the manufacturer I get an answering service. My mind isn’t working any better. Every idea I get is like a cold French fry. On other days, the sun shines, life is glorious, people are lined up twelve deep outside Kap’n Klam shops all over America, and my mind leaps and darts. Even bad ideas shimmer in the sunlight like foamy wavelets, you know what I mean? But get this: the interesting ideas, the ideas that are worth pursuing, are as likely to have been dragged out of the sludge of one of those dull days as to have come gliding in on the surf of one of the brilliant ones. Now I ask you this: on which days am I inspired?”
Weeks earlier, I had been in a state of mind that had made me fear demotion, made me fear losing status in the Tars, and I had thought of resigning as a way of saving myself from worse disgrace. Now my state of mind was very different from what it had been then, and the idea had come to me that I could accomplish much more by resigning than merely making the best of a bad situation. The will to work returned because I had a reason to work. I knew what I was going to do. I was going to make the manual perfect, and when it was perfect I was going to make sure that no Scribe-come-lately could change it. I was going to carve it in stone. I was going to bring my journey as Scribe to an end.
First, I made “A Tar does things by the manual” the foremost Trait, and from there on everything fell into place, though it still took an awful lot of work. I spent every night working on the manual, trying as hard as I could to make it exactly what I wanted it to be by the next meeting, including the only one of the Tales for Tars that seemed to me anywhere near ready for the Tars to see, the one I’d found myself working on most often, the one I called “Mutiny.”
In Topical Guide 231, Mark Dorset considers “Inspiration” and Foreshadowing from this episode.
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231: From exhilaration . . .