Re-examination of Motivation

There's something to be said about the benefit of learning while you do. It feels very vulnerable to engage in an activity knowing you're just a novice. I always feel like there's no point in my struggling to produce art.

I imagine Society judging my output before shaking her head and pointing at the countless works of the great masters of every craft I've ever been interested in. What's the point of your your naïve, primitive work?

In truth, there is not much in it for humanity. Though of course this is an irrational perspective that a part of me uses to protect my ego from humiliation and embarrassment. Why is this the case?

For starters, there's always some perspective that will drain the meaning, the vitality out of a narrative. Does Beethoven's Fifth Symphony matter if you took the entire universe into account? You couldn't even hear it in the vacuum of space.

There's always another perspective that imbues a narrative with meaning. Isn't there something beautiful in hearing and reading the first works of an artist, even if simplistic and naive? Isn't there a meta quality to art wherein the development of am artist becomes a work of art in itself? A kind of testament to the story of humanity?

Does the knowledge that you will never break a world record at some athletic feat negate all the benefits that practicing a sport will grant you? Or is it that you only dreamed of glory, of adulation, of validation? Does this sense of dejection stem from the unlikelyhood of earning parental praise, a gold star or high marks?

If that is the case, then a re-examination of your motives is necessary. These are some of my own motivations. Yet they are not my only ones - and so when they fail me or even hinder me I choose to rely on alternatives. There's friction in the change: I have to remind myself of this dynamic and I have to debate it, but eventually I get on with things.