Creativity is a cycle

“Inspiration” originally (and still) meant “to breathe in.” Together with “expiration,” or “breathing out,” it forms a cycle of respiration, by which we continually bring oxygen in and let carbon dioxide out. In the current information climate, inspiration is easy. We breathe interesting things in continuously, at the risk of disrupting the necessary cycle. To complete the creative cycle, we need to breathe out, too. We are meant to create and we need to do it regularly.