What’s the True Motivation?

I always thought I did things because they were what I wanted to do. But recently I’ve been wondering whether my choices were in reality made for me by society and my peers, fabricating my desires.

Did I become a musician, artist, writer because deep in the core of my being, that’s what I wanted? Or did I do it because that’s what was expected of someone in my particular position in the space-time continuum? 

I got ‘free’ violin lessons in elementary school. There were other instrumental lessons available too, but our family had an old violin that my mother had played in her youth. So, that’s what I was allowed to study. Then, of course, they had to be paid for to go beyond the basic, beginning levels. 

Then there were the in-class song-flute lessons from the school board’s traveling music teacher, who went from class to class and school to school in the city’s elementary schools. We were also taught the beginnings of reading music… G-clef only. Later, there were the schools’ bands, orchestras, and choirs. 

The question then is, were my ‘choices’ in musical study really mine? 

Some truly enjoy their creative outlets, whether creating/playing music, writing poetry or stories, or immersing themselves in the so-called plastic-arts (painting, sculpture, working with metals and gems). I’ve heard many artists (in all genres) maintain that they literally have to write, paint, play, whichever, that it’s the only true enjoyment/compulsion in their lives.

That has never been the case for me. I’ve only performed, whether music, art, writing, when there was an immediate goal, gain, or objective to be achieved. I can’t remember ever doing any of it because I just had to (was obsessed with it) or just loved it so much.

For me, the closest thing to that, at least so far, is my desire to think about and question any and all of our conditioning, our standard customs and beliefs (dogmas). Is there any true meaning or purpose in life other than what we give it?

Even my many years in the martial arts were initiated by my environment, bullies at school, youthful physical weakness, and the desire to control my own life, and dare I say it, destiny. And while, yes, I did like Judo, Aikido, Tai Chi, and the philosophies involved. I can’t say that I actually ‘loved’ them. They were the hardest and most challenging (for me) things I ever attempted. But love? Those practices did give me self-confidence and some control, and made me strong body and mind. So, overall, the martial arts were very good for me, and I wouldn’t be who I grew into without them.

But my question remains unanswered: What’s the true motivation?

–LE – 2/17/24