I made the mistake of asking an AI chatbot for motivation the other day.
When one leans into these sorts of modern tools for creative inspiration it is helpful to remember that they are the strangest sorts of things often juxtaposing unearned flattery with inhumanly blunt criticism. Grain of salt on standby.
My curiosity was with a very human problem for which I knew the answer but I figured an all-knowing resource-consuming generative search tool might come up with something unique to say: why do I so often run out of steam on new projects?
The joys of starting a new hobby, tackling a new challenge, or learning a new skill are often gloriously rewarding.
And when we were young, damn, everything was new and interesting.
I’m wheeling in on fifty this year and I find that the joy of newness is not only something I crave, but an energy and vibe that tanks likes a bad metaphor with the lifespan of an ice cream treat in the sunshine.
The AI knew why just as well as I did: some mix of psychology and endorphins and reward stimuli in the primal parts of my woefully organic brain.
Fixing the issue is a bigger challenge than just asking a bot, though, and I think it might help to spend some time getting my own very human brain around the problem.
Under the category of Young & Restless I’ll be writing more on this topic as the months wear on.
Terms FROm this POSt
- inspiration
- A vague concept I mention frequently in my writing but rarely pause to define, I think the notion of being inspired is really at the foundational level, the seeds of creativity. Without inspiration, without muse, without spark creativity is just work or repetition or rote effort. Inspiration does not necessarily need to be monumental or epic or of the highest quality, but rather it is what is at the start of every creative process …until it flowers and drops more seeds of inspiration and the cycle repeats.
- vibe
- There are many words that try to encapsulate the ineffable feeling or aura of a thing or an idea. Vibe is yet another comfortable and trendy stab at trying to pin down a definition for something that is hard to define about those very things. It often implies an alignment, positive or negative, with the feeling given off by the subject of the vibe.
