May Influence Delight

I've been pondering the difference and separation between influence and inspiration lately. To me, influence seems to be the things that guide us and affect us, but we aren't totally aware of. Inspiration is that spark that drives you; something you spy and it creates a nebulous vision in your mind. Inspiration can be incoherent, but it has a palpable presence, whereas influence is there without us every seeing it. Like some mastermind or puppeteer, influence pulls the strings that make us dance.

However, where does one begin and the other end? Are not certain objects influencing and inspiring us simultaneously? I suppose what really bothers me in this pointless contemplation is the little matter of free will. How free or independent is anyone when their very surroundings have a profound impact upon their thoughts? Even when we feel inspired there remains the niggling worry that we're really just having a gut reaction to something placed in eyesight...

So this outfit: inspired by this image (haunted me for months now) and influenced by my surroundings.

"The poet's habit of living should be set on a key so low that the common influences should delight him." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Outfit details: dress- H&M, necklace courtesy of Modcloth, bangles- Marc Jacobs via eBay, tights- Urban Outfitters, shoes- Bloch via Gilt Groupe, nail polish- self mixed