the "right" motivation / emotional independence
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URL: https://pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=6933
Printed Date: 09 September 2025 at 5:37am
Topic: the "right" motivation / emotional independence
Posted By: 0xDB
Subject: the "right" motivation / emotional independence
Date Posted: 11 August 2008 at 6:29am
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So, what's this thread all about? As some of you may or may not know, I recently(about three weeks ago) had that moment of uncontrolled emo-ness in which I got weak and deleted all my works from the gallery. A few days later I deeply regretted that and thanks to pixelblink all of my work got restored. That incident however got me thinking about a few things. I started to question why I am doing art in the first place and I came to the realization that my main motivation for doing it is the "wrong" motivation, because it makes my emotions dependent from other peoples opinions and feedback, which I think is undesirable, because it negatively affects my life. wrong: emotional dependence on feedback or a lack of it Let me try to explain: While I create a piece of art I often find myself not being fully committed to the piece but rather my thoughts are drifting away, dreaming of all the praise and "WOW"s that the piece will get me when I will showcase it later. This creates a problem though: if the praise and the "WOW"s don't come, there is no reward and this puts me in a bad mood and I get sad. That's the most basic way I could think of explaining the emotional dependence on others. Now what is so bad(wrong) about this? It is wrong during the process of creation, because It restricts myself, because it does not allow me to create freely and to have fun at it, because I will always be limited by thoughts like "will others like it", "I must make this perfect" and "this must not suck". The pressure that these thoughts create can often grow so big that I decide to chicken out of finishing a piece, because I think it sucks too much. It is wrong after the creation is finished, because of the previously described dependence of my emotions on the feedback the piece receives. So what's good("right") motivation then? I'm not sure about this but my first thoughts on it involved to develop a genuine love for what I do without thinking of the results, to just enjoy what I'm doing, regardless of what I think that other people may later think of it. To achieve that, I think the main motivation should not be to create a piece that others may like but rather create a piece that *I* would like or be at least satisfied with it in the end. Being satisfied with my own work would have the benefit that my emotions would be stable and could not be affected by a lack of feedback or even negative feedback. Loving what I do would have the benefit of me keeping to do stuff more persistently and more regularly, more steadily and would ultimately train my skills more, so I'd automagically get better with every piece (and that without trying hard to impress others and without feeling sad when that fails). Anyway, enough of my thoughts on the topic. I would like to read what your thoughts are on the "right" motivation. Is there "right" motivation? (if you can think of any, describe it) Is there "wrong" motivation? (if you can think of any, describe it) What is your own personal motivation to create? (does not necessarily have to be just a single thing) Have you ever felt that your motivation is wrong? What did you do to change your motivation (if you ever felt you needed to do so)? When you feel burned out, empty and lacking energy, what do you do to motivate yourself again? Think about it and discuss!  |
Replies:
Posted By: theguy
Date Posted: 11 August 2008 at 6:56am
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Holy sh*t, you basically described the sole reason why I don't finish many pieces... |
Posted By: skeddles
Date Posted: 11 August 2008 at 3:13pm
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Excellent topic, and I think your story was very moving and motivating. =] I actually really like my pieces. You talked about how you don't get as much praise as you were hoping for. I guess that happens to me a lot, and that doesn't really bug me, It's just when I submit a piece that I didn't really like or spend time on, and other people like it lot. Kinda confuses me. Is there "right" motivation? As long as your happy doing art, then do it. What is your own personal motivation to create? I just like having things in my gallery, which I actually have fun looking through. What did you do to change your motivation (if you ever felt you needed to do so)? I've never even thought about this before =\ When you feel burned out, empty and lacking energy, what do you do to motivate yourself again? If I'm having trouble with a certain piece, I usually just put what I'm working on to the side, and try again from a different angle. ------------- |