What really motivates you?

Vacation!

When I’m drivin’ in my car
And a man comes on the radio
And he’s telling me more and more
‘Bout some useless information,
S’posed to fire my imagination...

As if tempting us with an unnaturally perfect but tasteless apple, the images are icons of the ideology of advertisements. ‘Meretricious’ is today’s word*. Commodified (“The process, then, is simply this: the product becomes a commodity...”). Ideological castles built out of the debris of social discourse. Enough clichés for now.

Best,
Helen

*showily but falsely attractive

Ed Sukach said:

You too, huh!!

I was nearly crucified at one of those innumerable "Motivational" sessions ... They result in the "zombiefication" of those attending. I finally "cracked":

"I have HAD IT with all this talk! We have been talking and planning, and giving out trinkets, for three years! When the hell do we get to the "DO"? Everyone in this room knows exactly what is needed. Give us the tools and AUTHORITY to do what we know should be done, and you will have a marvellous, shining Quality System in place within a week! We are *Executives* here! Damnit, let us EXECUTE!"

Not well received. Management decided to continue as they were ... talking - with 30% (THIRTY PERCENT) of finished product going out the door DOA on initial set-up.

I *LOVE* the post by MattCarey about "mailing to the creator of Dilbert"!! Dilbert is funny because the situations there ARE so close to the truth!

Click to expand...

It's like Deja Vu all over again! hahaha

Looks like I'm browsing through the "bla-bla" mission statement of a silicon valley e-net start up.

LOL

I see no one clicked on my "Motivation" thumbnail. I thought it was relevant...

Art.

gr82bart said:

LOL

I see no one clicked on my "Motivation" thumbnail. I thought it was relevant...

Art.

Click to expand...

?????????????????

I beg to differ... I sent that one (alnog with Jorge's) to all of my workmates today! My boss especially liked it (Jorge's that is)...

Talent. Others I admire tend to incite me to aspire to greater things.
If others can do it, so can I (if I want to).

All this, plus the immediate availability of Minor White's Rites and Passages has drawn me to consider one question about my photography ... WHY?

I do know that it is an important part of me: that doing photography feels a lot better than not doing photography... but Why?

I've taken it upon myself to write an essay of that motivation. It is definitely one of the most difficult tasks that i've ever tried in my life. I have absolutely NO assurance that I will succeed; and it may well be "better" if I do not.
-Yet the very act of internal verbalization and the physical activity of recording those thoughts on paper (see Carlos Castenada) , I am certain, will be of particular value.
This is not for an "Artist's Statement) ... I've written that I would rather have the work speak for itself ... although a brief description -- poem? may accompany specific works when I deem their presence to be of value in enhancing the perception of the work. It will be an introspective tool. It may be that no one else will ever read it .. I don't know -- it will, undoubtedly reveal a great deal about my "innards"... to me - or whoever. I'll decide on the level of privacy I wish to keep after I complete the essay - or as with a lot of my work ... simply decide that it is time to stop and move on.

Rites and Passages has - is having a significant effect on my consciousness -- this is interesting:

"All that has to be said, but it must also be said that only a secular intellectual could think that it was particularly important. White's experience told him that intelligence does not necessarily involve learning, that in fact learning, because it can be accomplished with only the head, and because it is so easily confused with understanding, may often be treacherous. Wisdom to him involved the whole being --- head, heart and senses --- not just a part: enlightenment could come through boot-blacking as well as it could through biophysics."

Hmmm. Lots more to go... and lots more to come.

David A. Goldfarb said:

Echhh. Corporate culture. Echhh.

Click to expand...

Are we motivated to be critical of others?

What motivates me? It took quite a while to figure out but now I am sure that the motivation is the aliveness that permeates my body mind and soul when in the flow of creation.
Being high in a healthy way. If I don't photograph for a while I feel sick, tired, depressed. When I load film and go for a spin I feel a rush of vitality flowing through all of myself. Mi mind gets sharp, my feelings get intense and to the point, my body fills up with energy... My soul smiles and feels grateful to be alive.

I think it is in Art and Fear that I read that artists go to work when the pain of not working exceeds the pain of working. Makes sense?

I am motivated to express what I feel in images as I struggle in most other forms of communication. I also know that I haven't got there yet which keeps me trying.

I used to take photographs to record what I was seeing/living etc. Now I want to make photographs to show a little bit of the inner me to the rest of the world (or those willing to look)

Phill

For Cheryl...

"The happy years are the lost, the wasted years. One must wait for suffering before one can work."

Marcel Proust



Nothing more effective for clearing one's mind of daily trivia to make room for real work.

nothing....