To Anyone Who Thinks They're Falling Behind

February 11, 2016 10:34 AM

You don’t need to read any more lists and posts about how you’re not doing enough. (slMedium)
posted by Kitteh (89 comments total)

You don't need motivation, you need discipline.

Motivation will never get you where you want, because motivation is fickle. However, if you have discipline, you're much more likely to get where you want.

Don't feel motivated to write a novel? Be disciplined enough that you put words down on paper anyway. One of my favorite authors wrote about this exact topic when asked how she finds the motivation to constantly write. The answer (paraphrased) is that she doesn't always have motivation, but she has discipline.

Yes, life happens. But if life is something that happens to you, where is your agency? Your free will?

Things like "things are dark until they're not"... Honestly, in my (humble) opinion, that's bullshit. When things are difficult and they are dark, it takes real, honest, gut-wrenching, tear-jerking work to get yourself out of there. (Whether it's therapy to get through trauma, or trying different meds for depression, or learning confidence after a difficult breakup, or relearning how to walk about being bedridden.) It's not easy. And not everyone can do it. And most certainly don't succeed on their first try. But if you come in with the attitude that you just have to wait it out--then it's never going to happen.

Don't just let happen to you. Get disciplined, use your willpower, and exercise your agency.
posted by ethidda at 10:45 AM on February 11, 2016 [55 favorites]

> Sometimes the novel is not ready to be written because you haven’t met the inspiration for your main character yet. Sometimes you need two more years of life experience before you can make your masterpiece into something that will feel real and true and raw to other people. Sometimes you’re not falling in love because whatever you need to know about yourself is only knowable through solitude. Sometimes you haven’t met your next collaborator. Sometimes your sadness encircles you because, one day, it will be the opus upon which you build your life.

Yessssssss.

I'm working on a graphic novel I've been planning since 1995. I have had to spend time getting good enough at drawing and at comics to make it look like it does in my head, I have had to get through some of the personal traumas that it contains metaphors for so I can write about them with sufficient distance.

You do have to spend time honing your craft so you can be ready to make the Magnum Opus whose idea came in your teens when you're older. I spent time drawing and writing lesser things to get in the shape to do this Important Work. But sometimes you just have to say "fuck it" and spend some time slacking off and taking in new inputs, or just relaxing.

(But you should probably try to get rid of that all-pervasive sadness, the myth of the tortured artist is a pretty bad idea IMHO.)
posted by egypturnash at 10:55 AM on February 11, 2016 [9 favorites]

I dunno; this currently resonates with me right now precisely because I am beating myself up pretty hardcore over not feeling sufficiently motivated to get my project off the ground right now. I work full-time as well as being in school to get a library tech diploma, not to mention making time for having what passes for a very small sad social life, and most days, I am just exhausted. I really want this project to at least flourish and definitely succeed, but it sucks when most advice is that I am not disciplined enough, I must not want it very badly if I am not stretching myself even thinner than I am currently. I am going to try and cut my work hours to part-time in hopes that gives me breathing room to focus on things, so hearing that I can live in the moment right now is a nice change of pace.
posted by Kitteh at 10:56 AM on February 11, 2016 [12 favorites]

ethidda - I agree with you to a point, but at this particular point of my life I am simply too exhausted even to sustain discipline in the first place, and I think there is something to be said for being able to forgive one's self when that is also the case. I've taken steps to lessen the exhaustion, and on one day in the future it will ease, but that day is not today, and as a result I don't have the energy for discipline and I need to forgive myself for that.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:15 AM on February 11, 2016 [27 favorites]

On the one hand, I really feel this. My novel took me over 12 years to write, and I simply couldn't have done it on a different time frame. I just wasn't ready.

On the other hand, the thing that kept me writing and eventually made me finish the damn thing, was this inspirational quote: "People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents" (Andrew Carnegie). I hung that mofo over my desk and some days looking at it would make me write and other days it would make me angry, but it definitely was what kept me from dying before I became a fucking author.
posted by Mchelly at 11:17 AM on February 11, 2016 [23 favorites]

This was good to read today, since I was just recently lamenting how little progress I've made on a creative project I first came up with one year ago this month. I'm motivated to do it, but kicking myself for not working on it faster, or more consistently. I've even had ridiculous thoughts like breaking up with my girlfriend so I can devote my otherwise occupied weekends to the project! This essay may well save my relationship.
posted by ejs at 11:32 AM on February 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

The thing I took from this was not to let "motivation" detract from living your life. The guilt and distress you feel when things aren't done get in the way of doing it.

And discipline is a better master for me than motivation any day. Motivation seems to take a lot more effort than habit does.
posted by LuckyMonkey21 at 11:33 AM on February 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

You don't need motivation, you need discipline.

Oh great! Cool! Sounds like you have all the answers. So where do I get this discipline?
posted by Squeak Attack at 11:39 AM on February 11, 2016 [31 favorites]

First: Kitteh, you are absolutely burning it up lately with these articles you find. Seems like almost every day there's a, "Hey, this really speaks to me...hey, Kitteh posted it!" moment when I'm reading the FPPs.

So...yeah, this really speaks to me! We have a real discipline problem in our culture--we don't understand what it means, we constantly mistake people who have a naturally persistent disposition for having discipline, we think if we just apply ourselves even harder that our projects will really start to blossom...we manage to suck the joy out of everything we do, every bit of creation, by constantly monitoring and judging ourselves against some standard. Reminds me a little of weight loss; there's always some guy who is like, "just go to the gym twelve times a week like I do," and then your soul makes that little crumbly sound as it turns into dry dust.

I am a big believer in "never a day without a line." Gotta put something down, even if it's only how much I can't write today, how much I hate writing; otherwise the writing-joints start to calcify and it's tougher to move them the next day. But it's hard to separate that belief from its little demon brother, "you didn't write today because you had to work late and the kids were insane and by the end of it you were exhausted and thus you are the greatest failure of all time." Wanting to put the words down--wanting to have the story, the book--gets so confused with how bad a person you are not to have already written the story, the book.

So when she says, "And what I think we all need more than anything is this: permission to be wherever the fuck we are when we’re there," she's preaching the gospel to me. Because if there's one thing I fight to the death, it's my permission to just be. It is so hard to allow myself to be, when it comes to writing. Everybody talks about turning the internal editor off, but my internal editor is like the killer in an 80's slasher film, supernatural, it keeps coming back again and again, and I'm stupidly wandering around the campsite with only a hair brush to protect me.

Permission to be. I mean, it is not simple. Talk about something that takes discipline. To constantly remind yourself, it is okay, you are where you are. Be here right now, stop imagining that you need to be there instead..

I gave myself permission to stop being a failed novelist and start being an experimental and maybe failed short storyist. It's awful! I can't sit back and imagine long lines of people worshiping me over the wondrous qualities of my latest bestseller! But removing the pressure, and asking simple questions--what am I capable of writing today? What do I have the energy for? What does this sentence need? What will future generations--no! No, back that one up! What is a better word than this word?

If you let yourself be, with words, with projects, if you can allow yourself to be honestly exhausted, and anxious, and despairing, and happy, and whatever you are right then, then sometimes it's easier to put words down. My internal editor is furious. I have begun writing stories with no editing. Will not rewrite. Will not even re-read. Barely any spellcheck. Fuck it. The goal is not that. The goal is to evade years of gathering rules and judgments like thorned vines surrounding me, to slip past them and get back to all I wanted to do originally, which was to write things down. To explore what it felt like, to sense that joy when imagination is made physical, when it is transmitted onto paper.

This was a really good essay, and I thank you again for it.
posted by mittens at 11:42 AM on February 11, 2016 [20 favorites]

Oh great! Cool! Sounds like you have all the answers. So where do I get this discipline?

It's simple, you just need motivation.
posted by Sangermaine at 11:47 AM on February 11, 2016 [39 favorites]

You get discipline by creating habits, and you create habits by setting realistic goals with a system of support, and you create realistic goals through trial and error, and you set up a system of support by identifying what it will take to motivate completion of those realistic goals and then figuring out a way to get that thing to yourself.
posted by rebent at 11:52 AM on February 11, 2016 [9 favorites]

This was a good article, but its acceptance of "just being" still contained an underlying expectation that this "just being" would lead, in a different way, to the accomplishment of the goals that one is striving for.

The article could be taken a large step further by acknowledging that many, perhaps most, aspiring creators and artists will never accomplish what they're envisioning under any circumstances.

And that, believe it or not, is okay too.

Acceptance with an underlying expectation that you'll eventually still get what you want isn't really acceptance, in my opinion.
posted by crazylegs at 11:57 AM on February 11, 2016 [11 favorites]

Being disciplined is about creating good habits. It's a skill that people have to practice and learn. Also, it may seem counterintuitive to some, but to practice being disciplined, you should focus on the present and the future, and not on the past. So it's not about beating yourself up over what you didn't do yesterday, but focusing on what you can do today.

In fact, one of the most powerful ways to create a good habit is through positive reinforcement. This is how dogs, dolphins, and olympic athletes are all trained. The woman who started using this technique with dolphins actually trained herself to go to night classes regularly even though she really didn't want to. That sounds really close to discipline!

The same woman, in the same book, writes about positive and negative reinforcement. Positive reinforcement works, but takes more work as the trainer. Negative reinforcement usually has unintended side effects, including making the trainee avoid the topic/area/person entirely. Sounds a lot like the effect someone who has beat themselves up for "failing" and then not being "motivated" to work on it anymore.

So, yes, you can practice discipline, and it's helpful in almost all areas of life.

(The book is called "Don't Shoot the Dog.")
posted by ethidda at 11:59 AM on February 11, 2016 [12 favorites]

You don't need motivation, you need discipline.

I have, over the last 11 years, self-released 16 albums. A labor of love, and yet a few of those were FAWM or NaSoAlMo efforts, or doing something similar but in a different month. These often felt like work. Instead of doing those I decided I'd follow the "Thing a Week" model and record and post one track a week through 2016.

And, sometimes that's been ugh. It's been waiting until Sunday late afternoon and throwing something together that's only a minute long or so and not really liking it very much and posting it anyway because that's my rule.

I don't think this is doing much for my creativity, to be honest. On a weekend where I would rather play video games and read than make music, I'm probably not going to make very good music.
posted by Foosnark at 12:07 PM on February 11, 2016 [6 favorites]

Foosnark, that's understandable ...

For me it's a different issue. My inspiration seems to be mostly, hmmm, constant -- I have a large backburner of ideas, but it's hard for me to get started. Once I do get started, I don't feel like I've just put out crap to satisfy a quota.

(Unless I have, in which case I approach it as a more practice or experimental exercise: Can I do this, or that... )

So, the statement you responded to might be a terribly wrong one for people like you, but it's pretty good advice for someone like me. (With the only problem being that yeah yeah, we know...)

I'm not a musician, though.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 12:36 PM on February 11, 2016

(i think sometimes when we are talking about our frustration with creative projects, it's a little like when you're sad and you're talking to a friend, and he is all, "here is what you need to do," and you're like, no, really, i didn't need a plan here, i don't need steps to follow, i already know the steps to follow, this isn't about how tab a into slot b makes the project happen, it's about the fact that this is a thing in my life i have emotions about and that requires a certain kind of energy and a certain kind of attention that are not in great supply, and the first step--which is really separate from developing good work habits--is to understand the emotional context you find yourself in.

sometimes the way to support a creative person who is feeling their wheels spinning is to understand that they already know all the physical steps necessary to do the project, but that what they need is a safe and protected space to process through all the emotions, the frustrations, the sense of injustice that time is so limited and so much else is being asked of them.)
posted by mittens at 12:36 PM on February 11, 2016 [31 favorites]

So, I have ADHD, and one of the notable things about ADHD it that it absolutely wrecks executive function. So I find it vastly harder-than-average to form habits, and stick to them; I find it vastly harder-than-average to self-motivate; I find it vastly harder-than-average to plan.

I still make things, usually in bursts of hyperfocus that can't always be relied on. I think I can call myself a creative person without bragging: I write, I draw comics, I sew, embroider, make jewelry, knit. I don't do as much of it as I want to, most of the time, and sometimes I do too much of it at the cost of neglecting other things. Sometimes the things I make are just the things I *can* make, right then, with the focus and the ideas I have to hand. Even if I'd rather be writing that novel than sewing doll clothes or stringing beads.

But man, it sucks to hear everyone talk about how much discipline matters, when it's something I have to work ten times as hard to build half as much of.
posted by nonasuch at 12:38 PM on February 11, 2016 [30 favorites]

I've ... been plagued by this stuff for many years, still am to some extent, and here's where I've gotten to: it's so important to like and approve of yourself, even, or especially, your "flaws" and that's the foundation. Just like yourself.
Remember, it's really easier than it looks. You can just do it.
Last, there's a calculus, as it were. Once you find a groove, once you're happily producing stuff you like and others start to express their appreciation, use that to feed your continued growth and production. Beyonce wasn't just born, there's a long process of success there which has fed her.
But really, you get to like yourself.
posted by emmet at 12:46 PM on February 11, 2016

It doesn't matter. You can overcome ADD/depression/addiction or whatever to write the novels, make the albums, teach yourself to program to earn money for your family, do whatever inspiring or insipid things you want to do in life and there will still be no shortage of people lining up to accuse you of not actually doing anything or to just make you feel like shit in general because, I don't know, maybe people are just dicks, but if you live long enough you will eventually be accused of and shamed for doing it wrong, doing it too much, not doing it enough, being too fake, being too real, taking it too seriously, or not taking it seriously enough, many, many times over, especially by people who don't actually know you except on the internet or by reputation.

It's got to be discipline over motivation because motivations are fickle. For example, I wrote and produced an album I'd intended to be an expression of gratitude to my wife/family for being there for me and sticking with me through my struggles with situational depression/schizoaffective disorder during an especially difficult and painful period in our lives. My wife left me almost as soon as it was finished. I have no real motivation for making music now other than the self-therapeutic benefits but I've written more songs in the last year than in the ten previous years because I still have a habit of songwriting. So discipline is necessary, but not sufficient. The only thing sufficient is somebody else actually giving a shit about whatever it is you're doing, and that's often a hard sell even to friends and family. Once third parties start getting mixed up in your creative work, all bets are off. Things just start getting weird.

tl; dr - motivation, discipline, and all the determination in the world still don't mean you'll find an audience or be able to scratch two nickels together in the bargain, but if you're inclined to making art, good, bad, or indifferent, you'll probably keep making it anyway.
posted by saulgoodman at 12:48 PM on February 11, 2016 [13 favorites]

The guy in this post needs to read this. But he's probably too busy jetting around.
posted by limeonaire at 1:15 PM on February 11, 2016

The Medium article says, so nicely, “you don’t need another productivity tool” and the worst response to that would be “ok fine but have you tried THIS productivity tool?” So I’m hesitant to mention a book here -- hesitant to suggest anything, really, when mostly what I want to do is nod & flap my arms around in recognition & sympathy, as the article strikes a familiar note for me too. But! I want to mention Bayles & Orland’s short & thoughtful book Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils & Rewards of Artmaking, as it’s something that’s been really helpful to me at times of being stuck creatively. It resonates with me in ways this article does: in talking about the ways creative block happens, it gives me permission to not beat myself up for not getting as much done as I want to.
posted by miles per flower at 1:31 PM on February 11, 2016 [10 favorites]

Nonasuch, I could have written that myself. I have learned to be patient with the cyclical nature of my creative process. I have bursts of almost superhuman creativity and productivity, but they are finite. I try not to beat myself up about projects, I try to manage my own expectations as well as those of other people. I use the low ebb time to teach myself new processes and skills, even if others think it isn't what I'm "supposed" to be doing.

I have also learned to lean into the side-productivity that happens when I am supposed to be working on something else. I mean, they don't call it amateur-crastination.
posted by louche mustachio at 1:38 PM on February 11, 2016 [9 favorites]

Now that I think of it, perhaps I should start writing a novel. I would get so much painting done while I wasn't working on it.
posted by louche mustachio at 1:40 PM on February 11, 2016 [16 favorites]

The most important thing that I've learned about making art in tough circumstances is that you have to be dedicated to figuring out what's preventing you from doing the work ; at the point where you really need water and sunlight and fresh air and fertilizer, yelling at yourself for whatever expectations you're not meeting is entirely counterproductive. And when you assume that you're not meeting your goals because you're a bad and lazy person, that just gets in the way of figuring out the real roadblocks and figuring out workarounds for that.
posted by Jeanne at 1:45 PM on February 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

We all know this: that our experience cannot always be manipulated. Yet, we don’t act as though we know this truth.

Oh, we act as if we don’t know a lot of truths...

Things like "things are dark until they're not"... Honestly, in my (humble) opinion, that's bullshit. When things are difficult and they are dark, it takes real, honest, gut-wrenching, tear-jerking work to get yourself out of there.

I don’t really think that’s the point of the post, to deny that there’s ever a need for discipline and gut-wrenching work, I think the author is talking about something else, or from a different point of view. Simply enough, from the point of view of accepting that we cannot control everything in our lives, or maybe even most of it.

It sounds simplistic but there are like centuries of debate and ideas in philosophy and theology and psychology and scientific research that go to the root of this struggle, between the belief we can control our lives and the unpredictability of fate/life/genetics/environmental factors we don’t choose (and oh ahem then there’s that thing of inevitability of death but shhh let’s pretend we don’t know that either) and all the unexpected unplanned events in life that make us into what we are, often more than our own willpower/determination/motivation/discipline or whatever you wanna call that part which we think is all our own doing, the magic belief that if we think something and want something we can make it happen.

We do need to believe in having control over our lives to some degree, else we wouldn’t even get out of bed and brush our teeth, and we would all go mad, but life is neither a series of mechanical habits nor a series of wants and wishes to struggle to make true. There’s a lot more that’s undefined, and I think the post has a nice poetic way of putting it, for a change, as an antidote to all the productivity/motivation/discipline/habit-forming tips we are flooded with on the internet every day.

(and yeah I know discipline and motivation are supposed to be different things but in the end it’s still in the same area of "that which we believe we have 100% control on", and it’s nice to be reminded once in a while that there’s no such thing)
posted by bitteschoen at 1:51 PM on February 11, 2016 [8 favorites]

i'll throw in my two cents about adhd/add as someone who used to go through continuing cycles of mania/depression and never had much success getting any project going

things that worked for me....
* body practices that help me feel the physical experiences of any activity i am undertaking - this started with yoga - now, it's internal martial arts and dance - find the thing that works for you
* meditation/mindfulness practices that helped me feel the mental experiences of any activity i am undertaking - which helps with both body practices and also art practices - again, whatever works for you
* choosing to do things i really wanted to do rather than things thought i should do - can't say how much effort i wasted reading things, doing things that i didn't really have my heart in but that seemed like things i should do (according to whatever stories i'd built up around those ideas) - when i learned to tune into by body and mind, i learned to see better what i really moved me, where my heart really desired to go - then it became easier to become disciplined about it because i am doing things i love doing - even if i don't always want to do them, it's easier to be disciplined about it when it can draw on that feeling of love

hope that's helpful to someone
posted by kokaku at 1:55 PM on February 11, 2016 [15 favorites]

Here’s a link to an interview that comes to mind every time I read something about the idea of "motivation", may be only tangentially related but since the words "willpower" and "free will" and "discipline" were mentioned in this thread it seems apt to link it - an interview with a contemporary British philosopher, Galen Strawson, "one of the most respected theorists in the free will industry and, at the same time, a bit of an outsider" – it’s a challenging read but rewarding and "thought-provoking" in the most literal sense. I think I may have stumbled on it years ago right here on Metafilter, and it’s stuck with me ever since. In my mind it does fit in with the post on Medium very very nicely.
posted by bitteschoen at 2:10 PM on February 11, 2016 [6 favorites]

Beautiful article.

You don't need motivation. You don't need discipline. You don't need "new habits." You don't need "willpower." You don't fucking need anything that makes you capitulate to the idea that you somehow don't measure up, or that you are somehow in the way of your own "explosive potential". This fetishization with the idea that those of us who are directionless, unsure and unambitious are somehow lesser or held-back is an idea that needs to burn. There are systemic, political and economic reasons as to why a lot of people feel as though they aren't where they want to be and the problem isn't the individual. The problems aren't with the individual ingredients, the problem is with the whole goddamned stew we are all seeping in. The flypaper we are collectively stuck to.

You do you. Stop the glorification of busy and all that. Enjoy life. Do what you can.
posted by jnnla at 2:32 PM on February 11, 2016 [29 favorites]

I used to write but then several years ago it became difficult and I struggled with trying to impose discipline on my life. Didn't work; eventually I couldn't even write silly comments like this one without feeling angry at myself. The only thing that helps at all is letting go of the judgment, all the pushing pushing pushing, and just being. I like to think of myself as a Pokemon waiting for my next evolution. Thanks for this lovely article.
posted by thetortoise at 3:08 PM on February 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

For academic writing, it's easiest to treat it like a job and hey, what do you know, it is my job. This is true both for tenured faculty and graduate students but it isn't true for contract faculty much of the time, and that's just one of the many ways they're being screwed.
posted by sfred at 3:09 PM on February 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

Some of us don't come from an economically privileged enough place to feel secure just sitting around "being" when our kids are struggling with new behavioral and emotional issues their doctors and teachers are worried about, or when there's a growing risk we might be forced to walk away from a house with problems in a good, working class neighborhood where we've got close ties to our neighbors and will be screwing them out of tens of thousands of dollars they could probably use that are locked up in their home values.
posted by saulgoodman at 3:24 PM on February 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

Play, watch TV, eat, sleep.
Listen to music, play, watch TV, eat, sleep.
Go to school, play, listen to music, watch TV, read, eat, sleep.
Go to school, go to practice, go to music class, do your homework, watch TV, read, eat, sleep (less).
Go to school, go to practice, practice music, do more homework, eat, read, sleep even less.
Go to work, go out, read while you eat, plenty of time to sleep when I'm dead.
Go to work, go to the gym, go out to eat, meet someone, fool around instead of sleeping.
Go to work, come home to sig-o, watch a movie, eat, read, sleep.
Go to work, come home to kids, add their list to yours, eat, read to them, fall asleep watching TV.

And on. Many, many people have to find motivation to do any of these things, and over time, the list grows. This list is truncated. Just the other day I was in a contentious meeting with a coworker over a project that requires 3 of me, receiving a text from my wife that one of our kids came home with head lice (and all the activities needed to deal with that) and another office called me because of an emergency situation. Doing 3 things at once becomes the norm. Would that I could just say, "Fuck it all," and go bowling. And I have it good.
posted by Chuffy at 3:25 PM on February 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

One thing I have found that helps a ton is having people who are into what you are into around. I am every D in the book- but when I step back and realize I am all half assed and everything looks like it should be done NOW- I call one of those friends and ask them to prioritize for me. I will reciprocate , offer chocolate, or extra hands when needed.

Creativity for it's own sake keeps me sane.
posted by LuckyMonkey21 at 3:37 PM on February 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

Some of us don't come from an economically privileged enough place to feel secure just sitting around "being"

This is quite a big assumption here. Speaking for myself, I'm talking here about the ability to express myself at all, just for me, not any kind of success or anything. There were years when I found it nearly impossible to write or talk at all, and it wasn't good for my mental health.
posted by thetortoise at 4:07 PM on February 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

also I find Americans in general to really undervalue hard work, so IDK if this is really the message we need

Really? I think Americans are absolutely obsessed with the idea of hard work, though at the same time we may secretly be wanting and expecting instant gratification.

Anyway, you don't need to read any more lists and posts about how you aren't doing enough because that's actually what you do instead of getting around to doing the thing that you say you really want to do.
posted by atoxyl at 4:55 PM on February 11, 2016 [5 favorites]

There were years when I found it nearly impossible to write or talk at all, and it wasn't good for my mental health.

I probably wasn't talking to you then. I'm talking about people who incessantly tell you to stop worrying and just be happy where you are and with what you have and shame you for even wanting to have some reasonable amount of control over your own future and life circumstances. I sometimes feel like I haven't had any real influence or control over my life going back all the way to when I was first kidnapped by Americans. It seems like it's been nothing but sneaky tricks, mean jokes, marketing scams, and weird forms of social manipulation ever since.

Disdain/contempt for people who aspire to have more freedom to creatively express themselves while meeting their basic responsibilities to their children or even--gasp!--harboring aspirations for their future just seems to come from such a high perch of economic/cultural privilege it grates. I'm probably taking this too personally and will politely bow out of the conversation now before I derail it any further.
posted by saulgoodman at 5:27 PM on February 11, 2016

You don’t need more motivation or inspiration to create the life you want. You need less shame around the idea that you’re not doing your best.

I was reading a book the other day that was talking about exercise, how it's good for you, and the first chapter focused on this one school in Illinois.

A bunch of years ago, a PE teacher from that school got their hands on a fancy wearable heart rate monitor, which was worth several hundred dollars at the time. They took it to school and put it on an 11 year old girl when the class ran their mile. Her heart rate was above her goal heart rate the whole mile, and when she approached the finish line, it shot up to 207 out of a possible 209. Her time on that mile was something like 10 minutes IIRC, but she was literally pushing her body to its limits.

Without the information that heart rate monitor provided, the PE teacher would have been pushing her to work harder next time. I couldn't tell that story to my partner without my voice cracking.
posted by aniola at 7:02 PM on February 11, 2016 [9 favorites]

This article just makes me scream AMEN THANK YOU. I have never seen this idea written down but it's something I've always felt. At some point I just got so sick of beating myself up for not having in me the seeming unending supplies of energy and ambition. There's no point. You're an adult. You will do the thing, if you want to do it and you're able to do it. If you're not doing the thing, the time hasn't come yet. Your inner child doesn't have to be constantly parented, you are all grown up and worthy of your own trust.
posted by bleep at 7:20 PM on February 11, 2016 [9 favorites]

I think a good part of doing The Thing before you die absolutely is sheer energy. If engaging in your avocation is your third or fourth shift, yeah, that's not as likely to happen. The people I know who get stuff done are either naturally energizer bunnies, or absolutely ruthless with their time. Which, practically, means either getting help with shift # 2 (e.g. roast dinners), or massive lifestyle simplification. (E.g. deliberately not noticing that your kitchen wouldn't pass an inspection. Or seeing your parents less often than they'd like [and maybe even, oh you know, letting someone else worry about that].) Something's got to give.

Discipline, meh. Habits. Responses to pulls and pushes. Some internal, many external. Deadlines, involving an audience you care about. (If not a boss, competitions, classes, groups, any commitment that involves external accountability.) A larger plan helps. So does a hunger for accomplishment. That's the thing it's hardest to work up, if it's not there. But it's not happening if you're tired.
posted by cotton dress sock at 7:54 PM on February 11, 2016 [6 favorites]

You will do the thing, if you want to do it and you're able to do it. If you're not doing the thing, the time hasn't come yet.

Maybe. I think if you want to do the thing, it helps to put yourself in situations that support that. I don't think it'll just happen on its own. There are a lot of regretful people in their 80s. (Not to ramp up the pressure.)

Me, I'm trying to just get the basics down for now, to get that battery charged.
posted by cotton dress sock at 7:56 PM on February 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

Because, few really do it on their own. People have editors, collaborators, partners, teachers. People who will help clean a bathroom, or make apologies on your behalf when you've missed an important social obligation, or visit your parents. Etc.
posted by cotton dress sock at 8:00 PM on February 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

"If you're able to do it" doesn't exclude needing help, time, money, or whatever it is you need.
posted by bleep at 9:08 PM on February 11, 2016

Very true! And there's variability in all that, for sure. Some have greater needs than others. (One of the basics is a constant trial, for me.) Also, some people are so constituted as to be willing to forgo things most other people need. If none of that's just there, though, there are options that can help get things going. I don't know; in terms of putting yourself in a place for action - I've felt the difference between feeling really geared up and actually doing the thing, and just waiting and beating myself up. The distinction between those states rested on 1) moving to a different city (and neighbourhood, once), which led to meeting encouraging people who also cared about that thing - some of whom created opportunities to do it (and deadlines), and 2) deciding to sign up for a class.

(I mean right now, those basics are definitely in the way. I.e. you are right :) )
posted by cotton dress sock at 9:35 PM on February 11, 2016

Important social obligation= I am actually kind of happy no one likes or needs me that much.
posted by LuckyMonkey21 at 10:10 PM on February 11, 2016

Things are dark until they're not.

I'd like to believe that. I've had a very hard time believing it lately and frankly think that this is more likely bullshit than not. Because things are not dark until they're not. Things are often dark even when they seem not dark. Things are not dark and then they're suddenly fall-off-the-cliff dark, without a moment of warning. Things are dark, and sometimes things are seemingly not dark and then you find out on closer examination that yes, they're actually dark when you thought they were not. Things are dark, and things are also partly dark, suffused with darkness, darkness mixed with other things, or dark just around the corner. Things may be, occasionally, dark until they're not, but life is also not as simple as that. Never.

Sometimes hard work and discipline are not enough to "get you out" of darkness. Sometimes darkness is just here to stay, and it will damn well fuck up whatever you do that makes you think you can "get out" of it, and it will stay even longer just to spite you.

The obsession with free agency and discipline in this thread drives me up the wall. We all have far less free agency than we assume. We all also have far less discipline than we assume, and there are not free reserves of discipline floating around in the air waiting for us to grab onto them. Discipline is back-breakingly hard, and sometimes it's impossible.

Willpower is not enough. The platitude "use your willpower" is unmitigated bull. You can exercise all the damn willpower you want but that's not always or even mostly, in and of itself, going to help you attain your goal. In fact, it may counteract attaining it.

And if anyone says "Have faith" to me one more time I swear I will push them into oncoming traffic.
posted by blucevalo at 4:19 AM on February 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

Yeah, I too have a visceral response to that word, blucevalo. So loaded up with misplaced morality. (I heard it from more than one nun growing up, never in a kind way.) "Just be better" is shitty pedagogy. Thankfully, the whole of contemporary psychology speaks against this way of thinking. I don't know why it just won't die :/

I think it is a lot about luck, but do feel that if there's a way to put oneself in the way of helpful circumstances, that can make a difference.
posted by cotton dress sock at 5:59 AM on February 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

I feel like I read a completely different article than others. I mean, I know about discipline, habits, productivity. Hell, I wrote a book, I've written three full-length albums, gotten a couple of degrees. Great. That still doesn't mean there aren't times of re-evaluation when a pause in forward progress feels like some sort of lapse in productivity and worth. The letdown after completion of a big project can feel like that. For a time it can be unclear what one is supposed to be doing. It can feel unsure where your next sense of purpose and self-worth is going to come from. At those times it's important to value yourself for yourself, and not expose yourself to lectures about personal character flaws. I see this article as recognizing that truth. We are far more than our projects and achievements.

Incubation is very important to creativity. Incubation can look like sloth. Also, at least for some of us, there have to be points in life where the slog of constant productivity needs to slow down, because we need to ask bigger questions: is this the right thing for me to be doing? What is the worth of this thing? Why am I bothered because this thing is no longer delivering the kind of satisfaction it used to? What would make this thing more effective - or would it be more effective to have another thing? What if I switched from advocacy to activism? What if I focused on short-term goals, or sensory re-enrichment, or spirituality for a while?

I mean, that sort of thing is not dicking around - it's living a meaningful life. I think the article, though it wasn't a perfect expression of the idea, is a reminder that it's not all about ticking boxes. Life does have its ebbs and flows. And it should. The awkward, sometimes unfocused periods of transition and uncertainty are where the new possibilities creep in.
posted by Miko at 7:44 AM on February 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

It’s unfortunate that it reads like so much millennial woo because there’s a really important message in this article.

You don't need motivation, you need discipline.

No disrespect, but fuck this shit.

With two university degrees, several different careers (some of them simultaneously) and a moderately successful small business behind me, I finally hit the wall last year and had to go for help. Learning as an adult that I have ADHD was challenging, but it gave a name to all the workarounds and compensation strategies I use to make my life resemble the orderly, fulfilling existence that seems to come so naturally to everyone else. For instance, I know I need to exercise so I try to cultivate it as an addiction. I’ve forged a portfolio of creative work by learning to channel hyperfocus into something productive. I’m not a bad teacher because I’m flexible and I can think on my feet.

Discipline? Don’t make me laugh. Motivation? Well, that’s whatever has grabbed my attention this afternoon. Anything I’ve ever done, any project I’ve thrown my weight behind I’ve done because I had the chance and I couldn’t think of anything better to do at the time. In fact, it’s very easy for me to devalue my achievements and imagine they’ve appeared miraculously out of chance because they were as much about playing to my strengths and recognising opportunity as they were the product of hard graft. Words like discipline and motivation can very easily become the sticks I beat myself with when I feel I’m not measuring up.

One of the most powerful lessons I’m learning in therapy is the very thing the author of this piece is talking about. Accept this situation. It is what it is, for now. Maybe I have it in my power to change the script but I’m not ready to do that, not yet. Last week I committed myself to writing every day, this week I did three yoga classes after a very sedentary January. I have students to grade right now but if I’m working on my writing skills a comment on the blue helps me flex that muscle too. I’m not sure what happens next but I’m very lucky to be in an environment where I have the space to figure it out. Baby steps.

So no. You don’t need motivation and discipline. You need the self awareness to accept that you’re not much more than a jumble of biochemical reactions existing at a particular time and place, you have limited control over those circumstances and all you can do is make the best of them. These platitudes about motivation and discipline almost always come from a place of privilege, someone who’s won that existential lottery and isn’t willing to admit it.
posted by Elizabeth the Thirteenth at 9:47 AM on February 12, 2016 [14 favorites]

And if anyone says "Have faith" to me one more time I swear I will push them into oncoming traffic.

Can we add, "wherever you go there you are" to that list. Pretty please?
posted by squeak at 10:13 AM on February 12, 2016

A quote I saw on a friend's facebook feed recently:

"It's not a good idea to give 'do what your heart desires' advice to someone who's currently living a 'do what you must to get by' kind of life."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:41 AM on February 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

Reading this thread is like Platitude Deathmatch
posted by speicus at 11:06 AM on February 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

Platitude Deathmatch

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step...after which there's still basically a thousand miles to go.
posted by mittens at 11:08 AM on February 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

I liked this article and I think that waiting for the right time (which may be never) is ok, especially since this stuff usually addresses writer's block or what is perceived as writer's block. Maybe that lack of motivation or inspiration is actually useful feedback that your time could be spent doing something that would be more productive to you.

Don't feel motivated to write a novel? Be disciplined enough that you put words down on paper anyway.
No, you really don't have to write an uninspired novel. Why do we keep thinking this is such a noble thing to do? The world needs more activists and volunteers than it does mediocre novelists and that includes published writers. Why do we hold that up as such a valuable activity? If you have nothing to say, you really really don't need to contribute more to the pile of empty culture unless you really want to and you enjoy doing it. Imagine those same tough-talking motivational speaker writer's boot camp applied to actually successful completed work that SUCKED: "You must be disciplined to write that episode of Too Close for Comfort. You must be disciplined and listen to your muse to produce yet another airport novel that is dreadfully written because people need something for their commute! This is a very high calling!"

When I didn't have anything to say, I just stopped writing and did other things. No, I'm not a successful writer, but I'd rather have worked in homeless services than cranked out some half-ass piece of empty shit. Why do we do this compulsory thing with writing, as opposed to say, working with abandoned kids, which is going to have more real-world value than just producing some filler for your morning commute? Ultimately, it's because we have a culture that valorizes activity that has an audience and tells people that you're nobody unless you have an audience.

A friend of mine once asked me, clearly fishing, "I want to write but I don't have any ideas. What should I do?" He wanted me to throw him some, but that would defeat the purpose. Writing should be driven by the need to say something, not just yapping to fill the space. Yes, it's best to hone your technique if you do actually have something to say and keep at it to hone your craft. But if you genuinely have no content, then why would you feel the need to write? Why do we insist that people push themselves if it's not happening? We're awash in mediocre culture as it is, it's not like there's a drought, so why is such high value placed on that? I don't say "Well I really have no rhythm, but I must be a drummer". Maybe that's feedback to tell me to pursue another activity that is more worth my time then just barking up the wrong tree.
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 11:39 AM on February 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

I appreciate what you're saying, GospelofWesleyWillis, but want to add that there's a lot of mediocre culture made by people who believe they have a holy calling to create and the ego/resources/connections to get the stuff out there. And there's a lot of people with valuable things to say that no one else is going to say for them but with too much doubt/exhaustion/marginalization for them to get anything out there. But I think you're totally right that the US at least overvalues activity that has a visible marketable product (i.e., not helping others, not emotional labor) at the end. So I dunno, it's complicated.
posted by thetortoise at 12:03 PM on February 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

people with valuable things to say that no one else is going to say for them
Which is a very fine reason to write. That definitely falls under the umbrella of having something to say and being motivated; lots of writers try to speak for those that can't.

My point was, if you don't have something to say and you're not feeling it, why put pressure on yourself? Why not just go work in your garden or take a walk? Why is that a bad thing to not say something if it's not there? Why is it so very important that we have an audience in our lives?
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 12:16 PM on February 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Obviously, if you're okay with never being a writer--which is perfectly fine--then it's okay to not write. Just like if you don't care about being a runner--which I don't--it's okay to not run. Occasionally, I might jog around, if I need to catch the bus or if I have extra energy to work off, but I'm not going to run in inclement weather when I'm just not inspired, because I don't define myself as a runner.

But for people who insist that they want to be writers (or define themselves as writers [or artists or musicians or whatever]), I believe it is important to practice writing even if they're not inspired. Just because the first million words I write are uninspired doesn't mean they have no value. They are practice for me to write what I actually want to write.

Nobody can magically start writing and write well, no matter how inspired they are. Just like nobody can magically play the piano at a concert level, no matter how inspired they are. If a pianist stops playing for years, instead of practicing, they're not going to play well anymore. That's just a fact of life.

Furthermore, there are always parts of a novel to slog through. Very few people are able to write a novel from the beginning to the end without getting stuck on something. And if you never work through that, you'll never finish the story. In the end, it'll be edited to something much better, but that base needs to be there. So, yes, it's important to write even if it's uninspired.

Lastly, what is wrong with airport novels? Why is volunteering at a homeless shelter better than writing something that can make some people's 4 miserable hours waiting at a too-cold airport a fun and enjoyable experience? Why is it better to wave signs at a street corner that nobody will read than to remind people of what it means to love and care and have empathy? Why is improving one person's life better than improving another person's?

Why is it that if you want to do something, it has to produce a perfect end product or it's not worth anything at all? I reject that. An idea is a story when it's told to someone. A project is unfinished until it's finished. A masterpiece is a piece of crap until it's honed into a masterpiece. Writing "uninspired airport novels" is just fine, especially if it prepares them for the writing that they want to do. And it's fine even if it never produces a dime or sees the light of day, because that's what it means to practice.
posted by ethidda at 12:17 PM on February 12, 2016 [4 favorites]

But for people who insist that they want to be writers (or define themselves as writers [or artists or musicians or whatever]), I believe it is important to practice writing even if they're not inspired.
Here's where I sort of disagree; I write and I value what I write. But I've gone long periods of writing because it wasn't there. And when I had something to say, I took it up again. I had other things in my life that needed taking care of; also I needed to grow as a person, and I think that was a valuable use of my energy. Writing teachers may've placed a higher value on spending time cranking out stuff and I question that. Practice is fine but walking away is ok, too.

Lastly, what is wrong with airport novels? Why is volunteering at a homeless shelter better than writing something that can make some people's 4 miserable hours waiting at a too-cold airport a fun and enjoyable experience?
My point was that it's not the highest calling in life and writer's boot camp type shpeils tend to act like it is, like the "Penmonkey" thread here I read a few years ago, where you Just Gotta Write, Balls to the Wall!! There's just this macho insistence that it's Soooooo Important. And I do place a higher value on trying to help another person's suffering than just entertainment, sorry; I read genre novels now and again and I enjoy them, but I don't think it's something that deserves a high social value. It's just a way to pass the time, which is fine, but I really wouldn't say it's noble the way that some writing teachers act like it is. And it isn't to say I'm Albert Schweitzer, but our society doesn't value teachers, nurses and counselors the way that it values cultural industries. That's part of my statement.

Also, my point was that if your inner compass is telling you that you are uninspired, maybe you need to get out in the world and experience life more. Maybe it's your inner voice telling you that your time might be better spent doing other things.
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 12:30 PM on February 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

And this is a tangent, but again: But if you genuinely have no content, then why would you feel the need to write? I don't mean practicing when you have no urgent content, but no ideas at all...like ever? Then why would you be 'motivated' to be a writer? That was an honest question of mine, I really don't get it. I write and I get ideas all the time; that's why I write. I just don't comprehend the thing of "I want to write but I have no ideas". None? Really, in all of heaven and earth you can't think of a thing? Then why bother? That's where my question of what the *real* motivation is, and that is, not creative urge, but the need to be socially validated as a Novelist/Writer.

Reminds me of that Harlan Ellison question where an aspiring writer asked him where he got his ideas from and he said he sends a dollar to an Idea Warehouse and he gets an idea.

It just makes me wonder about some odd pressure our society gives to introverts that they must be a creative or their lives are not worthwhile, and that you need an audience to matter.
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 12:40 PM on February 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

But for people who insist that they want to be writers (or define themselves as writers [or artists or musicians or whatever]), I believe it is important to practice writing even if they're not inspired.

I definitely don't believe this. I'm surrounded by creative people in my life, creative people who produce, and though they all have some sort of a working discipline when they're working, they also know how to take time out. That is really when important decisionmaking can happen. If you're trying and trying to force something, and it's not gelling, it can be incredibly helpful to step away for a while, and do something else, something that looks less productive. Increasingly, the neurology and behavioral science of creativity is supporting this.

As for output-only metrics: I'm kind of with Gospel here. I have also known a lot of people who treasured a "creative" life, who worked daily at their poetry or memoir or acting or painting or whatever, and never produced anything much of merit. Sure it didn't make anyone unhappy, and sure they're entitled to do it. But what's it worth? Nothing much other than as a pastime for them, or maybe the ripple effect they have on others because they feel like a creative participant in the world and that makes them happy. It's not nothing, but let's not overpraise that kind of work. Used wisely by a talented person, highly disciplined processes can produce amazing work. Used without reflection, it's not much more than plodding up one row and down the other.

Volume alone, discipline alone, habit alone, can't produce great work or a great life. One of the most critical skills of an artist of any kind is the ability to step back, evaluate work, self-evaluate, and incubate. It really is important to pause, question, do something different for a while, and come at your work fresh - especially in a long life of creative work.
posted by Miko at 12:49 PM on February 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

But for people who insist that they want to be writers (or define themselves as writers [or artists or musicians or whatever]), I believe it is important to practice writing even if they're not inspired.
If you want to be a professional writer, then yes, you're going to need to learn to crank it out (although I have off-topic views on content vs technique but that's my personal thing and it's off topic). But more on topic to the article, I don't believe we have to have this all or nothing view of having any creative pursuit that has to follow rules, such as write every day*. I'm a firm believer in democratizing creativity and if you want to do your side project on the weekends or whenever, and it makes no money, that's ok. It's ok to do your rock opera about a squirrel village or your needlepoint portrait of Naomi Judd whenever the hell you feel like it. You really can do whatever the hell you want whenever the hell you want, especially if you don't expect professional gain from it. I've been doing it for years and I have not gone to Creative Writing Jail yet. I'm not Micheal Chrichton, but I don't want to be. (Although I wouldn't mind being Zadie Smith, but she's doing a good job of it already).

Since bohemia died, there seems to be this idea that everything has to be monetized, including creative pursuits. Everyone has to be a "passionate" success. I just like the fact that this article says, no you really don't have to be browbeaten to do projects on your own time. You're a lot less likely to win a pulitzer, sure, but if you aren't driven that way in the first place, no amount of browbeating is going to make you into a person who is driven that way.

So for people like me and kitteh, this gives us permission to go on our own terms.

*for the record, my friend with no ideas is a very compulsive worker. He can churn out a lot but in my mind it's quite empty. He's repeatedly come to me for ideas, me who will go months without writing and writes whenever the hell I feel like it.
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 4:16 PM on February 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Why is it so very important that we have an audience in our lives?

Maybe there's a hope to leave some kind of legacy, absent other avenues (given a secularized, capitalist society).

Who doesn't want to say, "I was here", "I was known"? "I" was known. Not just the observable, impermanent I, the value-making or contributing I, the relational* I - the interior I, the reflected and collected self. Outside of a particular kind of art-making, which feels familiar and somewhat accessible to anyone who's ever even thought they should write a novel or make an album, there aren't many spaces or tools afforded us, in the ordinary course of contemporary life, to facilitate making a narrative of our lives. Or communicating important experiences. Or even really feeling or understanding and integrating them into a coherent sense of self. Most only have time to respond in piecemeal fashion to the bits and bobs that pull at us. There's a longing for a space in which one can put oneself together. It's not happening at work, for most people, that's for sure. (Although we are expected to become proficient in branding and packaging ourselves - our "human resources" - so we can sell our labour [i.e. survive], at the same time that we can't expect that attempts at authentic communication, in the online space, won't be used against us, on that score.)

*Also, on this - lots of people hardly see their own family. Their friends move for jobs, or they do. Kids grow up. Affordable mortgages and rents aren't always in dense, community-optimized areas. It's not like relationships and community are immediately available to everyone. We can't rely on others to reflect our selves back to us.

Beyond that, everyone played with colours and words and sounds growing up, so we all have an idea of what that's like, in some form. It's fun. There's not a lot of space or time for that either, once you've grown up.

And yeah, I agree with thetortoise here.
posted by cotton dress sock at 5:21 PM on February 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Maybe there's a hope to leave some kind of legacy, absent other avenues (given a secularized, capitalist society).
But there are other avenues and ways to leave a legacy; sure, it may be less ego-gratifying but that's kind of what I'm saying: why is teaching children or helping your community not considered a legacy? I have a semi-Daoist view that you can contribute to the flow of life in less obviously validated ways and it is still valuable, sacred even. Even if no one's watching, it still makes a difference. Part of the reason I'm on about this is that like many kids, I had the 'gifted child' syndrome of having a lot of pressure to measure up in socially-valued ways and I struggled because a lot of what they valued I found empty, and I had to ask myself "why am I so unmotivated about that? Why do I not care about these trophies and so on?" And I agonized a lot about that until I found other philosophies and creative approaches to living that had more to do with integrating creativity with living, curiosity, spirituality, and wonderment of life (Fluxus-style of approaches, experimental and conceptual art) and not so much about traditional accomplishments, especially since some of the stuff that I saw winning awards totally bored me and I had to find out for myself that having my own value system was ok, that external validation from mainstream society is not only not everything but often times it rewards kind of predictable stuff that is well-executed. I felt the same about a lot of academia; when I studied some academic approaches to writing and art I was just bored stiff and knew I could never have a career in academia as I had zero motivation to participate.

So in a nutshell, the permission to create on your own terms is very valuable to me, and I think many people get damaged by unnecessary pressures that are not as crucial as we have been led to believe. In fact, now that I don't care about external validation, I'm probably more creative than I've ever been. It was good to have a teacher say "You need to give yourself permission to write, and even write badly". That was a key step, but for me it was also crucial to say "You need to give yourself permission to not write or create if you don't believe in what you're doing."
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 8:12 PM on February 12, 2016 [5 favorites]

I just had a thought -

I liked this article and I think that waiting for the right time (which may be never) is ok.....

I don't get the sense that this is about "waiting for the right time", so much as it's about recognizing it and accepting it when outside circumstances are just too overwhelming, and allowing yourself to stop and address that other stuff.

At least, that is how I'm taking it, because that is currently the case for me, and I have secretly been feeling guilty about just being too exhausted to think right now at the end of the day. This made me look at the volume of sheer STUFF I've had going on and the bandwidth it takes to process it all and has given me the space to acknowledge precisely that it IS that overwhelming.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:03 AM on February 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

But there are other avenues and ways to leave a legacy; sure, it may be less ego-gratifying but that's kind of what I'm saying: why is teaching children or helping your community not considered a legacy? I have a semi-Daoist view that you can contribute to the flow of life in less obviously validated ways and it is still valuable, sacred even. Even if no one's watching, it still makes a difference.

Sure, service creates important if sometimes invisible legacies in all kinds of ways, and absolutely makes a difference and matters. Ripples of action, etc.

I'd like to break down what I mean a bit more, and hope it's not too much a diversion... I think even before we get to validation or audience, there is a yearning to simply realize a certain kind of subjectivity (possibly, but not necessarily, a uniquely Western and modern subjectivity). A (yes) ego-based, narrated self that strives towards cohesion. Even though that's not really possible, thanks to the vagaries of memory, fragmentation (all the pomo things that were exhaustively described in the 90s), etc., we remain pattern-seeking creatures, I think, with a need for meaning - we need to make sense of our lives. (Some research has connected this kind of coherent autobiographical narrative to various measures of health and well-being, for example. And narrative therapy can be very effective in helping people manage some mental health issues.) Again, yeah this isn't really what happens when we construct ourselves (as we constantly do), but it might be that the illusion of coherence is important.

In more connected and sociocentric societies, roles and relationships might be enough to provide a sense of continuity and coherence of the self over time. You're someone's brother, mother, etc. Your sister or children, you're reminded of you are all the time, through your interactions with them and a community over time. You have a stable source of identity while you're alive, and the promise of being remembered by someone when you're not anymore. (I don't think there's anything perverse about wanting to be remembered, I think this desire is sort of basic to people.) Or if you're in a Judao-Christian world, you have the promise of some kind of persisting self.

With the Modernish model of self that's available to us, we (or many) also have a sense of interiority that's important.

I'm arguing (or regurgitating arguments others have made, which I'm too lazy to link to) that currently, for reasons I mentioned, we don't have many ways (or time) to approach that kind of coherent, narratively organized self. But we (or some) still want to. And I think that in the absence of other ready ways of producing that kind of self, art-making fills in the vacuum, for particular cultural-historical reasons (you don't need a god in the mix to do it, etc.) I think the desire to create art, even when we don't, comes from that kind of place. (In answer to your question about why everyone wants to write a novel.)

Totally agree with you as far as the usefulness of letting go of the need for kudos and external validation. But what is art other than communication? People make things because they feel a need to express something to at least an implied audience. (I know more than one working visual artist who began (early on) because they couldn't comfortably communicate in other ways. [Those people actually had dyslexia, as it happens, and a few psychosocial things going on that I don't really want to relate here.]). We (humans) need to communicate, we're social.

(I think asking that the art people make meet some "good" criterion, or express something "important", is a bit at odds with the idea of fully engaging in process and letting go of standards. From the perspective of coping with existential needs, I think it's fine if people communicate whatever comes to them. I do think that there's more quality out there than one would assume. There are a lot of talented amateur musicians where I live, for example. A lot. And many who may not have conservatory-grad skills but still communicate beautiful or poignant moments. It's wonderful, imo. I'm not really down with the idea that "most people make crap and should censor themselves to cut the crap overflow off at the pass".)
posted by cotton dress sock at 7:47 AM on February 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Wow, I'm really regretting coming back to read the rest of the comments.

And we wonder why people fall into a trap unable to make anything ...
posted by squeak at 8:30 AM on February 13, 2016

cotton dress sock- dunno how to link, but thank you for that measured description of the why. I'm a crappy artist and somewhat better writer- but they are the things that define me and keep me whole. Taking pleasure in your work is worth it- being alive and creating is what it's supposed to be for .
posted by LuckyMonkey21 at 10:46 AM on February 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm not really down with the idea that "most people make crap and should censor themselves to cut the crap overflow off at the pass".)
No one is probably reading this thread anymore, but for me, what I was saying in context of the article was that certain benchmarks are sometimes over-valued and there is artificial pressure to be 'great' when some things, like airport novels or sit-coms, may not really be all that great and not worth beating yourself up over not having completed them. This article was about feeling a pressure to keep up and Do It All, regardless of what's going on in your life. This was the context of my opinions. That feeling pressure to write that airport novel or rom-com or yet another slasher film is not worth missing a visit to your mom in the hospital* or whatever; that it's ok to let life come before your project especially if you're doing it for yourself.

On the need to communicate and feeling motivated that way, then that's not really a problem in terms of motivation and keeping up. If you have something to say, then you're going to take steps to say it, that's great. But again, I really found it odd about the whole "I don't know what to say but I want to be a writer" thing. I'm repeating myself here and I'll let it go after this, but I honestly don't comprehend why you would want to be a writer if you don't know what you want to write about, not just in one sitting, but in general. Then what are you trying to communicate? You're saying you have no story to tell, nothing you're interested in. It just makes me think that somewhere along the line someone drummed it into a bookish child's head that they must be a Writer in order to have a meaningful life. Because otherwise I just don't understand the impulse, hence I link it to the "should" pressure that this article refers to. That was the context I was stating it. Also, I'm against the 'should' of writing every day as a guarantee you'll produce great stuff; that's an unconventional opinion, but IMHO writing is not the same as playing piano/violin/sports where you have to have muscle memory and fast reflexes to meet split-second timing. IMHO, you can go back and clean up a sloppy sentence with a great thought or idea, but you can't really take a perfect but empty sentence and infuse it with depth and profundity. (I've gotten in arguments in writing classes about this because I just don't think writing is analogous to piano or golf or whatever you need to get your thousand hours in to acheive greatness. It's about ideas, which involve contemplation, not rote practice. Yes technique is great but you can refine it later- but this is a tangent).

Like I said upthread, if you have any random idea you're motivated to work on (squirrel rock operas, etc) then rock on and go for it on your own terms and those terms included people hating or ridiculing it and making no money on it. I think people misunderstood some of the context of what I was saying about value (although, yeah, I'm a snob in some respects, but my tastes should not deter anyone from doing anything). I'm just very anti-Should about the arts when it comes to personal fulfillment. Again, that's not really applicable in professional realms; if you want to go pro, you will have to meet certain benchmarks, that's not really negotiable unless you want to take on the establishment and promote a new school of thought. I just think a lot of the compulsory, mechanical, mandatory rules sort of kill creativity, but that's an unconventional view in some respects and my background tends toward experimental and DIY and that's just not how the professional world works.

*I have actually had collaborators who were wanna-bes lay that pressure on me, that I "MUST" deliver a product (that they could not deliver themselves) while I was making hospital visits and funeral arrangements. Seriously, mid-life crisis wannabes who want to make their egotistical mark on the world can be a scary thing.
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 11:47 AM on February 13, 2016

^and on that above-note, if you have ever spent any time with not-so-talented people who very desperately want to leave a legacy, you might be less sympathetic to them. I have worked with that type of person and have had many in my life (I was one once in my 20s), who in mid-life really wants to make a mark and regrets not accomplishing more ( true we all do this, it's universal ) and is utterly desperate to acheive some sort of notoriety.

If you enjoy spending time with people who blame their failures on their parents or everyone else, people who are angry and bitter, then these folks are for you. I am less than sympathetic to that plight. In my experience, they were egotistical, entitled assholes all. This is yet another tangent, but I wanted to present the dark side of the 'noble endeavor'. To quote the Pogues; "I could have been someone...Well so could anyone".

I don't think this is a very healthy aspect of our culture; it's overvalued.
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 12:16 PM on February 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

I really should get my own blog at this point but wanted to comment here:
Why is volunteering at a homeless shelter better than writing something that can make some people's 4 miserable hours waiting at a too-cold airport a fun and enjoyable experience? Why is it better to wave signs at a street corner that nobody will read than to remind people of what it means to love and care and have empathy? Why is improving one person's life better than improving another person's?

You don't sound like you know what activists actually do, which involves building charity and nonprofit organizations, fundraising, promoting legislation and community development on any number of causes. Why do they do these things? Because they know "what it means to love and to care and to have empathy". I don't know if they got it from reading a genre novel at the airport, but probably not.
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 4:19 PM on February 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Seriously, mid-life crisis wannabes who want to make their egotistical mark on the world can be a scary thing.

Maybe it's because I get the impression some people have seen me in a light similar to this characterization in recent years, but your tone of cultural elitism, condescension, and ageism rubs me the wrong way.

I had something like a midlife crisis starting in my late 30s because I had gotten myself caught up in some very vicious office/local politics (as well as indirectly in what would later turn into a labor dispute I can't get into for legal and other reasons). I was miserable and legally trapped in a completely shitty situation that was not just normal workplace stress. A lot of people I'd known over the years who had supported and encouraged me in making music and writing suggested I should get back into doing creative work, and after my crisis (which wasn't the kind of thing you're probably imagining so much as a temporary descent into a socially isolated hell of addiction to a legal substance pushed at convenience stores around my neighborhood as if it were nothing more dangerous than a five-hour energy shot), while trying to rehabilitate myself after my wife finally got some friends to stage an intervention, I started trying to make art again. I never expected to "make my mark" or "make it big" or any egotistical/narcissistic bullshit like that, I just thought it might help me rebuild my sense of identity to return to making art therapeutically like I had most of my life, and I stupidly thought my friends and fans of some of the stuff I'd done in the past might enjoy hearing some new stuff and maybe if I got ridiculously lucky, I'd get a track picked up for commercial licensing and make a couple thousand bucks to take off some financial strain (like many of my friends and former collaborators had managed to do occasionally in the past). The main point was just to work through things and use art to keep me focused on working on something achievable while I tried to put my mind back together. I also mistakenly thought my wife missed making music with me and thought collaborating again might help us heal our relationship (we had started our married lives together collaborating on music after all).

And yet, there's no doubt I've gotten shit from people who simplify and reduce the whole story to "middle aged narcissist desperate to make his mark on the world."

Man, I have two beautiful kids. I already made my mark on the world. I was just trying to fight back against the bastards who wanted to grind me down, finish some stuff I'd already started, maybe have some fun, and hopefully make something beautiful in the process.

But you're probably right. What you're describing does happen, too, but I wouldn't be too quick to jump to the conclusion the simplified version of the story ("Egoistic middle aged dude wants to play Napoleon before he dies!") applies. FWIW, it's not just dudes. Women's midlife crises can get just as ugly and egotistical as any man's.
posted by saulgoodman at 5:39 PM on February 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Gospel, your comments sound to me like you assume nobody else has grown up "talented" or had the pressure put on them to succeed or have never encountered Eastern philosophies. I can tell you that's not true. People are commenting on this because it speaks to something--whether we agree or disagree with the conclusion.

I probably have the same view of activists that you have of airport novelists. That is to say, I grew up in a west coast city with plenty of left-leaning liberals. They are all activists. Yet almost none of them truly change the world. Most of them don't even really understand all sides of the issue. They do it because it makes them feel better. These are the same people who buy re-usable grocery bags to save the environment and then drive home in their SUVs. How is that any less egotistical than writing an airport novel?

In any case, I'm one of those people who wants to write a novel. I'd be ecstatic to write a published airport novel. I don't have a story to tell, but I'm practicing in search of one.

Why? Because growing up, I loved reading novels. Not the great works art where I was required to form some sort of sophisticated opinion. I just enjoyed the mass market paperbacks. They were simple, fun, and predictable. And they taught me *so much* about people--what they expect, how they interact, etc. (The airport paperbacks are especially popular because so many people can relate to them. So reading them is particularly useful if you're the kind of person who feels like an alien in society. Consider it an anthropological study of sorts.)

There is a book out there titled "Everything I Know About Love, I Learned From Romance Novels". I haven't read it, but the title rings true for me. I think without romance novels, I would not have learned how to trust or how to love. And yes, these are the "airport paperbacks" that you so glibly dismiss. It's precisely because they're so easy to read, that I could read and put myself in the shoes of these people.

And I want to do that for someone else, even if it's only one other person. If I can write something that will change even one person's life for the better, I think it's worthwhile. If I can help one person relearn how to love themselves... then, yes, I want to do it. So what if I don't know write now what the story is that I want to tell? I will practice and write until it comes to me.

Maybe it will never happen. But it definitely won't if I don't even try.

However, I refuse to let the article say that I simply need to stop and wait until I'm ready for it to happen. No, I will practice, in preparation for the opportunity. Yes, I'm okay with not having written a novel. But just because I'm okay with not having accomplished it yet doesn't mean I'm going to just stop pursuing my goal. That's the part that doesn't make any sense.

------------

"It's dark until it isn't." No, it's dark until you walk out of the tunnel.

I agree also that you can't wholly control your life. And maybe everything is destined to go a certain way. I definitely buy into that type of fatalistic view.

But on a personal level, if you truly believe there is nothing you can do to control your life, then what is the point of living it? (Being able to hold both sides of a duality is also very Daoist.) Also, you become a victim of your circumstances, of the world. And maybe that's okay for some people to simply say, "Well, life was tough, so I did nothing."

For me, though, I choose to believe that my effort matters. Maybe it doesn't--in which case, I haven't done anything worse. (Because if we're really fated to be who we are, then the worriers will always be worriers, and there's no point trying to not worry when you're fated to worry. And the people who will try will always try, so it's not like I can help being this way.) And if my efforts do matter, then I tried. I can at least say I tried.

So, on the one hand, it's absolutely okay to say: Life is overwhelming. I need to take a step back and focus on whatever my priorities are. (That may be getting food on the table. Or it may be getting over a parent's death. Or whatever.)

On the other hand, if you haven't given it a good try, you don't get to say, "Well, it just wasn't meant to be." You don't get to sit and wait until it's no longer dark. If you want it to no longer be dark, you have to use your own feet (or convince someone to carry you) out of the tunnel. And yeah, some people's tunnels are longer and more treacherous than others, but you still have to keep moving in order to get out of it.
posted by ethidda at 8:46 PM on February 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

I've never heard a self-proclaimed Daoist go on quite so much about "wannabes". Interesting.
posted by cotton dress sock at 9:08 PM on February 13, 2016

I'm just very anti-Should about the arts when it comes to personal fulfillment.

I don't know, I'm hearing a lot of Shoulds from you.

I'm not sure why you care X many words' worth what others do with their time on earth, or why you think you're positioned to make assumptions about the kinds of service people have engaged in. (Some people have been all about invisible service and need a little room of their own.) Or the reasons why some haven't found a way to express themselves. Posters here have talked about a bunch of them. I think it's shitty to tell them they were entitled idiots for wanting to try. I don't buy this "if you were going to do it, you'd have done it" stuff. People can make things any time.

Cliche: Everyone has a story, because everyone's lived. It's the truth. If anyone feels like they want to tell some part of it, in whatever manner, to whatever personal standard, to whomever, I'm all for it. (And if people are tired and need to care for their bodies, I'm very much all for that. If people are rewarded by their engagement with their families and communities, also all in. If the original post let people feel like it's ok to relax and do those things, that's to the good, I agree.)

I don't know about these desperate, untalented people you're seeing everywhere. Maybe some people are hung up on being actual rock stars or being written about in future generations' textbooks, but most people who want to make some kind of art, but haven't (yet), want to finish a thing for the sake of doing it. To make a thing exist, and have it be seen or heard by others. And it might be good. It doesn't matter if it is or not, afaic, the impulse to connect is one I'm always going to defend.
posted by cotton dress sock at 9:42 PM on February 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

I don't know about these desperate, untalented people you're seeing everywhere.

I've been through art schools (high school for the arts & college), my local art scene (with plenty of talented folks as well- and they are not the bitter ones) and I've worked for an arts education organization as an administrator. Telling kids they have to achieve fame and glory and greatness can be really damaging; I internalized some of that damage, that's partly why I'm fixated on this. Me and other students had to grapple with it. I just dont' think it's healthy to frame creativity that way. Each person has a fork in the road where you have to decide if you're going pro or not, and I think it's ok to say pro isn't going to happen but you can still love your art.

At the arts org, I worked with some really wonderful classical musicians and teachers who were happy being teachers and some who were the biggest pompous assholes you ever would want to meet. They couldn't cut it as musicians and they seemed to resent having to teach. (Have you ever had an art teacher who resents their students? I have; they suck. The ones who are humble- and usually succesful- on the other hand, are wonderful people) They radiated resentment and entitlement. Blaming other people for their problems and throwing tantrums was their typical M.O. Some of the worst ones came from the former Soviet Union*, where everything was push, push, push. What some might call 'dedication' I'd call stalking. We sometimes got complaints from parents about how they were abusive with the kids, not letting them stop and go to dinner. One kid puked from anxiety on his exam- he was about eight. It was a very success/achievement oriented program and there was a real downside to that; some of the parents were just awful (there were both parents and teachers who would help a kid cheat so they could get a certificate). Some of the teachers were just awful-- classical music is where the term 'diva' comes from. I have worked with people who were the most egotistical assholes you'd ever want to meet and they were NOT successful. (True successes can be divas, but there is no diva like a failed diva, in my experience)

In my experience, the successful ones were quite gracious. In my personal collaborative experience, doing experimental music, I had my not-productive collaborators harangue me when family members were in the hospital. They wanted me to "produce" like an employee- mind you, the stuff was NOT going to sell anything, ever. It was stupid; their egos were driving their inconsideration. Similarly, one of the classical musicians I worked with harangued our president while her husband was in a cancer ward, all because this fuckface did not finish his requirements for membership on time, he rants like it was her responsibility. And that happened EVERY WEEK I dealt with somebody who could not hack it professionally but thought they were God's fucking gift to the arts. They were ALWAYS these big fish in small ponds. And I think they had no sense of balance, no sense of respect for other needs in life. They clearly had it drilled into them that "doesn't matter if someone else has cancer- PUSH PUSH PUSH YOU MUST ACHIEVE. Be as Type A as you possibly can with no regard to other people".

To make a thing exist, and have it be seen or heard by others. And it might be good. It doesn't matter if it is or not, afaic, the impulse to connect is one I'm always going to defend.

Like I said several times, I'm all for people doing what they want creatively. You seemed to have missed that and think I'm saying 'don't make art ever.' I did NOT say that; I said many things that are considered successful are not necessarily worth killing yourself over. That relates directly to the article which refers to life sometimes needing to come first. And I know my taste is not the ultimate arbiter of what people do- I said that also. What's good is subjective; what I consider worthwhile would be worthless to a lot of people. Airport novelists would probably find my work pretentious shite, no doubt. We all have our opinions about what to walk away from. But here is the type of thing I was referring to: This Penmonkey's thing from a few years ago. It struck me as silly and macho; one commenter here parodied it hilariously: "Climb a mountain with your bare hands, punch a mountain goat in the balls!" I have found just relaxing about writing to work quite well and not so anxiety-inducing, which is usually where you get writer's block. Which is not to say that I didn't join a "Shut UP and Write" group- it's helpful, but I don't have all these stupid rules taped to my forehead and my writing is ok for it. Pressure is not always helpful; it is if you have a deadline and you are a pro, sure, but that's not my context and I don't think that's the context of the article. The article is all about letting go of FALSE pressures that we and our culture create unnecessarily.

I tried to contextualize my comments again and I think I made it pretty clear that this is in the context of Kitteh's article. I think you're focusing on certain comments I made that reflect my personal taste and have overlooked all I've said about creating on your own terms, democratizing art, etc etc. I don't know how to link to upthread comments but it's there. As far as my taste goes, that's just like, my opinion, man.


*Granted their methods to churn out Bolshoi Ballet dancers, but they also churn out some dysfunctional people. And what about kids that just want to play piano for the joy of it? Making it punishing kills the creative impulse I think. Some products of that culture might say otherwise, but it seems like if it's not happening, it's not happening.
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 10:27 AM on February 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

I've never heard a self-proclaimed Daoist go on quite so much about "wannabes". Interesting.
I'm really not a Dao-ist, I said I have a semi-daoist view about the flow of life. And Tao is about not striving against things, not going against the flow, so I think pushing something that ain't happening, including pushing around other people to meet your goals, fits that view.
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 10:32 AM on February 14, 2016

Gospel, your comments sound to me like you assume nobody else has grown up "talented" or had the pressure put on them
Quite the opposite; I worked in that environment (see above) and it made me quasi-alcoholic to be around Type A folks and would-be divas. Maybe my negative experiences are none you all have had because if you write alone, you may not experience that. But the rant above might illuminate what that environment is like and it was sometimes toxic.
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 10:45 AM on February 14, 2016

Regards ageism, Saul, I'm 50 and my collaborators are my age (slightly younger). I have just as much potential for midlife crisis as they do; I think you're taking it as an attack on you personally. I don't know you; I was just angry at my friends who were producing very little and pressuring ME to get things done when I had produced 2 cds of music, several videos and poems for a project and they had contributed precious little. The main wannabe who said "I need to get product out there" - his towering contribution was downloading some sound effects from the Net after 1 1/2 years of collaboration. It happened twice that people who were not productive, not especially geniuses, harangued me and made deadlines for me while I had parents and relatives dying- that's who I'm angry at. How I see this relating to the article and part of my point is that people who were hammering on me were projecting, and I kind of feel like the Penmonkey article is a projection, on some level. Or maybe it's just some silly pep talk, I don't know- it was just so over the top.

So that's where I think the irony is, that maybe a lot of the people saying "You have to do more!!!" are failures who are projecting themselves. That was my direct experience. The successful artists and musicians I've seen were people who just worked, they just sat down and did it. They didn't lecture everybody else and they didn't blame other people for their lack of productivity. Maybe I'm just taking my personal experience too closely to this article and taking it on irrelevant tangents, but I'm just giving context to my comments.

I do think the successful people I've seen just have a sense of flow- they keep going and stuff flows. They probably have more discipline than I (hence their success) but I do think there's something to the idea that there is a flow of life, there is a flow of creativity, and if too much is driven by ego to the point where you don't care about other people, is it really worth it? And if you are going to say "My art is more important than other people's needs", then you better be cranking out some Grade A Shakespeare Mozart shit to justify your insufferableness. That's my opinion but I've probably strayed way far off the article's point.
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 12:23 PM on February 14, 2016

And if you are going to say "My art is more important than other people's needs", then you better be cranking out some Grade A Shakespeare Mozart shit to justify your insufferableness.

How do you know how people have been spending their time, or whose needs they've prioritized, and why? Has it occurred to you that maybe some here *have given* a good proportion of their hours and days to meeting other people's needs? Are you saying they haven't got the moral right (and to me, it sounds like you're using your chosen philosophy to justify something along those lines, in a particular elitist vision) to take some time for themselves? Have you considered how, for example, gender dynamics might play into things?

maybe a lot of the people saying "You have to do more!!!" are failures who are projecting themselves.

It's your prerogative to say what you like, and you may realize this and not care, but you're being a bit of a prick, here, GoWW. This is obviously insulting to people here (including me, I guess?), but beyond that - and I know this isn't Ask - talking about people in this way suggests you might not have fully dealt with some of those early issues you mentioned. I mean, what do I know, but maybe. I wouldn't be so quick to write people off. I've seen people go through all kinds of ups and downs over their lives.

There's a lot else I'd have liked to have responded to, and I don't disagree with some things you've said, but I've given about all the time I feel like giving to this conversation.
posted by cotton dress sock at 1:43 PM on February 14, 2016

How do you know how people have been spending their time, or whose needs they've prioritized, and why? Has it occurred to you that maybe some here *have given* a good proportion of their hours and days to meeting other people's needs?
Cottondresssock, you keep taking my comments out of my personal context which I have explained. I'm being a prick because I'm angry at people who think it's ok to harrass people who have family members in a cancer ward? People who have not met their own responsibilities in their side of artistic pursuit? That's my context, that's my experience and if you think I need to be more understanding of those folks then whatever. We're done. I think, like Saul, you've taken somethings personally that had more to do with my experience and I tried to explain that, but whatever.
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 2:09 PM on February 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

And I apologize if some of my anger at the awful people I've dealt with felt directed at you; it's not directed at you. It's just my personal experience in the arts.
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 2:15 PM on February 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

I think, like Saul, you've taken somethings personally that had more to do with my experience and I tried to explain that, but whatever.

You're right, I have. I apologize (for being a bit of a prick). I definitely have my own baggage when it comes to achievement vs. giving to others, etc. That has nothing to do with you, I'm sorry.
posted by cotton dress sock at 2:36 PM on February 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

And I apologize if some of my anger at the awful people I've dealt with felt directed at you; it's not directed at you. It's just my personal experience in the arts.

No need, I was reading things you didn't write.
posted by cotton dress sock at 2:39 PM on February 14, 2016

As I was walking out the door I realize what went wrong: I tend to use the proverbial "You" as in "somebody" and perhaps you, sock & saul took it as literally "You". I tend also to speak rather inflammatorily, so I think that's where I set people off. It really is just about my experience, and the "You" is really my stupid collaborators and colleagues. Not you and Saul, so carry on and make some rockin' art! All is well :) No hard feelings, no worries.
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 2:46 PM on February 14, 2016

And to Edditha, I'm really not trying to discourage you or anyone else from becoming a novelist, or painter or macaroni mosaic artist or whatever floats your boat. This article resonated deeply with my experiences in 30+ years of life on the margins of the arts scene, and I'm discouraging a certain kind of pressure-cooker, egomaniacal mentality that seems to facilitate a lot of awful narcissistic behavior and not so much great art.
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 7:07 PM on February 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

Guys, maybe you're at a point where you could take this to Memail? I'm finding myself not wanting to read this discussion right now because it's just you guys hashing some weird point of order out.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:10 PM on February 14, 2016 [5 favorites]

Just thought I'd post a quote here from the article in this other FPP , because I find it's a nice example of an approach that reconciles the different views and experiences so passionately discussed here - this bit:

Afterwards, writing Annihilation was a simple process: I’d get up and write for three hours, fall asleep, maybe edit a bit in the evenings, and repeat the process. In five weeks, I had a finished novel. I couldn’t concentrate on anything else, in part because I was driven to write, but also because I felt so sick I was either writing or sleeping, with no energy for anything else.

It was one of the best writing experiences I’ve ever had.

This is maybe an extreme example of someone who had inspiration to write in the most romantic-cliché idea of writing (getting his idea for the story in a feverish dream!), and was driven to write, to the point he couldn't concentrate on anything else - but I like the idea that the "discipline" of doing it x hours every day was a consequence of that.

Often you read advice on writing and even from famous writers who focus on the discipline part, some have very specific routines and habits and even seem to "force" themselves to sit down x hours a day - but to them that's a way to channel that "being driven", a way to structure that impulse to write, and to put into a coherent form all the ideas floating about in their heads and/or their passion for language and words and telling stories, or making people think or provoking discussion on social issues, and anything that can drive writers to write. And they do enjoy the result of that structure and discipline even when it feels like hard work at the moment.

A lot of the extrapolated advice for writing (or creating anything) seems to artificially forget that part, separate that need for some structure and discipline from that impulse, making it sound as if the discipline comes first and is enough - and maybe it does and it is sometimes, maybe sitting down to write (or create anything) can unearth the "inspiration", obviously it can work in different ways for different people.

But maybe the two things - discipline and motivation, structure and inspiration, hard work and "you don't get to control everything / if it’s not the time, it’s just not the fucking time/ sometimes the novel is not ready to be written because you haven’t met the inspiration for your main character etc." - are concepts that we separate only in our minds, to describe them, to conceptualize them, while in reality they are part of a whole and can only exist properly and "successfully" in balance with each other, not separated. As with so many other things in life... we create duality where maybe there is none.

Or something like that - sorry I don't know how to put it in better terms, just wanted to offer a diplomatic attempt at mediating different positions! because in the end maybe they're not so irreconcilable, after all.
posted by bitteschoen at 1:25 AM on February 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

bitteschoen, that's really interesting! Two years ago I had a similar experience-- it turned out that my anxiety meds have more than one generic version, and when I got the wrong one I found myself with really, really terrible insomnia-- like, 'insomnia' doesn't even describe it correctly, more 'my brain forgot how to send the signal that tells me it's time to try sleeping.'

It lasted for a month, until I got the right meds again, and in that month I drew and colored a 20-page comic from scratch. I had a break from work so there were a bunch of 4- or 5-day stretches where I had no other pressing demands on my time, so I just spent all the time I would normally have spent sleeping working on the comic. I was basically nocturnal by the time I was done.

It was the first time I'd ever made a comic start to finish by myself, and I never would have gotten it done if I hadn't been stuck in permanent hyperfocus mode. I was kind of a mess for a little while after, but damn if I'm not still proud of that comic. The experience kind of sucked, but also was kind of amazing? Still feel conflicted about it, actually.
posted by nonasuch at 8:41 AM on February 16, 2016

Guys, maybe you're at a point where you could take this to Memail?
Done & sorry about that- i"m pretty new here and am still learning the ropes of communication here. Pardon the derailing/
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 12:11 PM on February 24, 2016

This post is long-dead, but wanted to add to bitteschoen's comment about the process working differently for different people. I think often-times the discipline is also a need to have a core in your life, a regular routine, no matter what it is. That may or may not produce something good, but it will give your life a center. When I studied dance, it gave my life a center to have class regularly, it was very therapeutic even though I hit a wall in terms of how far I could go. So when I stopped because I knew I couldn't go pro, I should've just accepted my limitations and kept on doing it not because I'd get so fantastic, but simply because it kept my mind more together, it gave me a core to build my life upon.

I think that's as good a reason for a routine as any, and I think those 'fork in the road' moments are really tough when making a decision to keep pursuing something. If you know you're not going pro, you have to decide to just do it for yourself for your own reasons and not external standards.
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 12:17 PM on February 24, 2016