On Motivation

I've enjoyed self-observing as I age and start taking on the exact traits that I used to see appearing in older friends. For one thing, I don't enjoy movies or TV shows the way I used to - too many tropes, too little creativity, too much familiarity with the tricks of the media-making trade. Learning about how the sausage gets made gives me both a huge appreciation for the work done to great content and takes away from of the magic mystery of shows. So it goes for houses, and programs, and so forth.

One other trait I've noticed lapsing is "passion" - a pattern of getting so immersed into something that used to lead me to spend four hours between 9 PM and 1 AM on a new project. Instead, I've gotten smarter about how I spend my time. Those spurts of projects were fun, but they also generally failed to go anywhere (though I'm still proud of my proposal to fix Williams housing). Long, slow, regular effort is more likely to yield tangible results.

However, I don't see this trend in everyone. On the contrary, some adults remain studiously passionate, jumping from project to project with a degree of direction changing that makes my head spin. It feels like the driving/motivating force for them is something else, and that these projects are offering an avenue for engagement instead of a motivation in and of themselves.