FROLIO – Formalizable Relationship-Oriented Language-Insensitive Ontology

Welcome to FROLIO – a new attempt to merge philosophy and the "semantic web" . This website is under continuing development.

Related mini-essay: Inspiration

What we are talking about here is the 'spark', 'booster' or 'élan vital' that gets us over our difficulties, our boredom, our lassitude, our indifference and out of our 'ruts', so that we do something useful and make more of our lives. It's like the 'tiger in the tank' of our motivation. So it's more than normal conscious will or intention; the spark needs to ignite something more than just our conscious rationality.

It may often need to come from outside of ourselves, like a writer or composer's 'muse'. But it's no use sitting and waiting for it. We need to create the right conditions for it to come.

Some things that help bring us inspiration

▲ Beauty	▲ Simplicity	▲ Nature
▲ Fascination	▲ Curiosity	▲ Variety
▲ Serendipity	▲ Opportunities	▲ Realization
▲ Surprise	▲ Dreams	▲ Good examples
▲ The unexpected	▲ Sympathy	▲ Pity
▲ Face-to-face contact	▲ Person-to-person contact	▲ A message
▲ Sense of injustice to others

Some things that stop us receiving inspiration

▼ Work treadmill	▼ Repetitive tasks	▼ 'Headless chicken' mode
▼ Being hustled	▼ Deadlines	▼ Headbanging
▼ Obsession	▼ Keeping up in the rat race	▼ Struggle
▼ Tiredness	▼ Sleepiness	▼ Being 'spaced out'
▼ Pain (e.g. tooth, back, gut aches)	▼ Constipation	▼ Nausea
▼ Hunger	▼ Noise	▼ Dread
▼ Hate	▼ Resentment	▼ Grudge
▼ Antipathy	▼ Apathy	▼ Pessimism
▼ Feeling hard done by	▼ Not being valued	▼ Financial hardship
▼ Pride	▼ Self-importance	▼ Posing
▼ Pleasure seeking	▼ Enforced change	▼ Regret
▼ Expecting certainty	▼ Over-concern with safety	▼ Gossip
▼ Married to mobile phone	▼ Married to internet	▼ Married to Facebook, Twitter

Some things that could kick either way

Drugs: Some drugs might temporarily lower the inhibitions that prevent inspiration; others might not, and all might result in hangovers
Religion: If one strips off all the bullshit, the 'Holy Ghost' might well inspire us to think more of others, love our neighbour etc; however we might equally become obsessed with the appearances, rituals, literalism, puritanical behaviour, silly dogma etc
Thrill of the chase: This feeling might inspire us to keep going if we are 'on a roll' - but we might not notice when to slow down or stop.

What can we do to improve our chances?

▲ Leave some slack in our living patterns	▲ Have 'quiet brain' times - 'mental cease-fires'
▲ Get in touch with nature	▲ Go on adventures and expose oneself to serendipity
▲ Avoid quests for certainty and perfection	▲ Spring clean our 'clutter'
▲ Address our worst struggles and bring them (for the moment at least) to some sort of resolution

What are the alternatives to a life with inspiration?

Zombie-like anaesthesia - let it all pass by
A life of pleasure whenever possible
Manic efforts at self-improvement
Manic activism - avoiding any quiet times, or 'boring bits'
Comfortable gossip with a close circle of friends and/or relatives

Links

Index to more of these diatribes

FROLIO home page

Some of these links may be under construction – or re-construction.

This version updated on 19^th June 2011

If you have constructive suggestions or comments, please contact the author rogertag@tpg.com.au .