who inspires you?

I have a confession - I don't read the news.
and I certainly don't watch tv news, or much tv at all, really.
I like to focus on inspiring information, and for me the daily grind of sensationalism and fear mongering that I see on the news or in the paper is just bad bad bad.
I look at headlines so I know what's going on, but that's it.
I love reading biographies, and travel adventures.
I love reading about fascinating people who don't look at what is, who rather create what should be.
Escapism? maybe, but I will take my wonderful escape over the reality that the world presents me any day.
I mentioned her before, but I will say it again - google Kira Salak and read about her crossing Papua New Guinea on foot, or kayaking up the Niger River.
Read about Isabella Bird, who explored the Rocky Mountains on food in the 1870's with an outlaw, and wandered around Japan and Tibet.
Read Mark Twain's Roughing It, and be amazed at what our American West looked like a mere 150 years ago.
I know the world is hurting, and needs our love and attention, but I find spending my energy on making it a more beautiful place better than agonizing over the pain.
Don't ask WHY? Ask WHY NOT?

"Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." --Lewis Carroll

"My imagination makes me human and makes me a fool; it gives me all the world and exiles me from it." --Ursula K. Le Guin