Inspiration v. Motivation

I don’t know if I believe in something called inspiration.

It seems that creative people are thought of as being “inspired” at all times. Maybe it is just a matter of syntax, but I don’t think there is such a thing as inspiration and more often than not the reason creative people create is more out of motivation. Now, to be fair, I am thinking of inspiration as some sort of flash in the pan bolt of otherworldly or supernatural control where someone is sort of possessed beyond their control to doing something. That is far from the truth most of the time. It seems as though this may be the case some of the time, but you can not get there without working for it, there has to be a desire to create in the first place.

What does one do when this bolt-out-of-the-blue can not be conjured or doesn’t appear when it absolutely has to? What if you have to write 10 minutes of music by next week and you “just don’t know where to start?” Is one supposed to sit around and wait for “inspiration” to strike? That hardly seems like the logical step to take. It’s rather inefficient, don’t you think?

I think that the value of just about anything created, thinking purely about artistic pursuits, be they writing books, articles, music, painting, film making, design, just about anything can be traced directly back to the motivation behind it all. I tend to believe that one can discern the value of something based upon the motivation behind it. It is completely up to the individual (audience) to develop a hierarchy of values that they bring with them and express in any number of ways from spouting their derision to anyone within earshot to (and strangely somewhat more rarely) heaping compliments to the creator of the artwork (I guess this is shown by spending money on books and music and artworks, or admittance to galleries and films etc.)

It may be easiest to pick out “art” that is created specifically for the purposes of making money. At least recently. I do realize that it is a very thin line that one walks when talking about this issue. There is no definitive place to stand. Artists do, obviously, need to make money in order to continue creating their art. This begs the question: should one create specifically for the purpose of their livelihood? Is this considered selling out? What does it mean exactly to “sell-out”? Should one, then, lead a duplicitous life of creating art for money as sort of their “9 to 5″ job and then do their “real” creating after hours and on the weekend? Is this still considered selling out? Could this be considered a more “authentic” artistic life seeing as how the artist is truly consumed with creativity and motivated to do so at all times?

Every single person that asks themselves these questions is going to answer them differently I guess. There are obviously many considerations within each of them. Nothing is ever cut and dry, is it? No, it’s not.

Those considerations are left up to the individual artist, as they struggle to survive. It is a struggle. We all come to realize this, and hopefully accept it. It’s a matter of acceptance, but also (more importantly) a matter of believing in yourself enough to think that change is truly possible. We can change things for ourselves as individuals and we can change things for society. We must be motivated to do so. Motivation comes out of education and direction. One must know clearly exactly what they are doing, and exactly what they want to do. This is part of the responsibility of everyone I suppose, not just artists. It’s more than just making a to-do list and accomplishing goals as if they were some simple to grasp weekend spring clean up. I think these things are life long desires. Deep rooted long term goals. What those goals are show where your motivation comes from.

I picture it as a line where motivation is at the beginning and the goals are at the end. Though I think that one must also learn to accept that those goals aren’t necessarily going to be reached. Perhaps they are, I mean that’s great, but doubtless important things will be accomplished along the way.

If every individual artist formulated a series of goals, based upon specific, rational and honest motivations (strict personal honesty is of utmost importance) only then can real progress as a group be made. Unfortunately there are larger forces at work that will likely impede the journey. This leads me to a larger topic: the role of a national government in the creation and perpetuation of art in their culture.

To be continued…