This is a difficult topic to broach, both on an emotional level and simply trying to make myself understood on what I am talking about.

If I were to ask how ISTps (or anyone for that matter) what inspires them, I'd get the stock answers: music, movies, literature, nature, etc. But what really - specifically - inspires you?

Of greater importance, why?

a) Do you understand the mechanisms behind it? I'd like to be able concretely identify what it is that 'twigs' in me so I can experience it more often.

b) Have you found a method for retaining that feeling once the cause is gone? Often a piece of music, a phrase, or an image will invoke inspiration, but when I operate in my daily life, the feeling is absent. I'm left 'dead', approaching life simply by rote - it's almost helplessness against the outside world, in a manner of speaking.

c) How to effectively communicate its effect on you to others? I'm not convinced this can be done, but I'm sick of being treated as if my emotional intelligence is akin to that of a rotten log. I am capable of feeling, and sometimes I wouldn't mind expressing it without feeling like a complete dork to the reception of blank stares.