Two times in the same week! I guess momentum is starting to pick up.
I thought a little bit more about this question of motivation. And I don’t even know if motivation is necessarily the right word either. I do brainstorm these ideas with my therapist and with friends. Why is it in the first place that I even want to do something creative?
At a certain point, you start to get too metaphysical when you question your motivation for doing everything. Any and all motivation is going to be some sort of combination of biology, psychology, and perhaps theology if you’re so inclined as well. I know that at somewhere deep down, I simply want to do something creative. And so even when I do approach writing projects, the ideas that I have for writing stories or something where the premise of the story is something exceedingly “novel,” if you’ll pardon the pun. Like I don’t want to write some generic Harlequin romance, or a Western based on a very strict, formulaic script. As much as I say the idea of being a “writer” is appealing, I don’t mean being a copywriter, or someone who produces potboilers to pay the rent. I think that’s an important distinction.
At a certain point you question whether you want to be a writer because you enjoy the creative process, or because you want to make money, and be famous, and be lauded for how smart and creative and special you really are. There’s no clear answer to that one. Obviously if I was making a boatload of money as a novelist, and I had complete domain over my schedule, I wouldn’t be doing the job that I’m doing right now. I wouldn’t be doing any other job at all. So is my desire to be creative, or is my desire to make money? They don’t necessarily have to be mutually exclusive goals, but there is some sort of an overlap between the two of them.
So why do I want to write? Is it some sense of self satisfaction about being able to look at something you created and have a sense of pride regarding it? Or is it some deep, psychological manifestation from childhood, the kind of thing that torments an artist their entire life, where I have to seek external validation in order to be satisfied with myself?
The more I dwell on this point, the more I think the answer is “maybe all of the above.” A very lawyerly answer, if there ever was one. But hear me out. I am writing this blog, which I don’t advertise to just about anyone, where I’m essentially dictating thoughts into Microsoft Word, and posting them online knowing full well that probably no one is ever going to reflect on, nor read these words. It’s essentially a very public diary. and I think if you’re the kind of person who writes a diary, to reflect on your thoughts in a private way without seeking external validation, at a certain point you must enjoy writing. Or at the very least, the act of writing provides some sort of catharsis where ideas are rumbling around in your head. Like being able to put pen to paper or word to processor become some sort of a spiritual digestif, calming some mild or grave torment that needs to come out through your mouth or through your hands and be expressed. And in that sort of a situation, the audience is really neither here nor there. Somebody may read your writings and your journals and your diaries one day, but that’s not the point.
And I guess philosophically, this is exactly what I want. Or at least that’s what the story in my head tells me that I want. I want to create art for the intrinsic purpose of creating art for my benefit. That’s why my podcast is called “Who Cares if You Listen?”, because I want to reflect on the fact that it’s there for my benefit, and my sense of art and intrinsic value. I don’t think that’s egotistical; rather, it’s an acknowledgment that creating something is valuable in and of itself, and I don’t have to chase likes or eyeballs or money in order to justify the things that I’m doing.
Maybe that’s just a story that I tell myself because it sounds very noble and respectable. Maybe I do care a little bit about whether people read this or listen to my podcast. But then again here I am throwing pencils in the void for a second time in one week, after not touching this blog for almost a month. So that’s got to count for something.