How oddly appropriate on the timing. The small, mobile ones (I should probably call them something else now, they’re no longer small–my oldest is now almost as tall as I am. Something to ponder) went back to school a week ago and I have been spectacularly unproductive.
August’s WriYe prompt is: Motivation – Myth or Muse?
Um. I have no idea what this means. Let’s attempt to unpack. Motivation (n.), meaning the urge to do something (The official Oxford definition says: “1. the reason or reasons one has for acting or behaving in a particular way. 2. the general desire or willingness of someone to do something.”). Myth (also a noun), a legendary story with little to no basis in history or, alternately, just something made up. And Muse (noun again), coming from the Greek pantheon, originally 9 of various specialties, now generally used as anything (or anyone) which provides creative inspiration.
Are we asking if motivation is fake, or inspiring? Sure, why not. Let’s go with that.
Maybe the idea is more like…asking about inspiration. Like, you know, the discourse about whether you need to wait for inspiration to strike in order to write, or whether you can build it by writing on a regular basis.
So, like, is motivation a myth, because you just need to do it, make a habit of it, instead of waiting for motivation to arrive (the muse in said question)?
Motivation is different from inspiration, I would say. Inspiration is “the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative” (Oxford definition again). So inspiration is having ideas, vaguely, whereas motivation is actually being willing to act on those ideas.
I would say I am generally motivated to be creative. I’m often thinking about stories, and I usually don’t run into creative writing blocks. The urge and willingness are there.
What is not always there is the executive functioning. I suspect I have undiagnosed ADHD (and, in true neurodivergent fashion, the idea of trying to get diagnosed and adding those extra steps into my day is exhausting so it will never get done) but have masked for long enough that I mostly come across as a functional adult. And I am mostly functional! I feed my family, I make sure the…squidlings?…get to all their activities and school on time, the house is kept clean, laundry and dishes are done, etc.
But sometimes the act of functioning like an adult means that when I do have some free time, instead of working on my creative goals like writing or drawing, I just veg instead. Watch ghost videos on YouTube, or read some fanfic, play silly games with no real point (looking at you, Minesweeper).
It’s not that I’m not motivated. It’s that I’m out of spoons.
So, I guess, in the terms of the question, I’ll say motivation is a myth. I suspect most creative people, or people who have creative hobbies, are not sitting there on a regular basis and saying they don’t want to work on their projects. Nobody does creative things because they have to. (Unless they’re doing court-mandated art therapy or something, I guess.)
But, alas, that motivation just can’t be realized all the time.
How are you doing, squiders? Anything that works for you when the motivation is there but the spoons are not?
