Writer’s Block, or Enigma of Motivation
Have I failed my own bravado advice
I haven’t written in almost a month now; while during the previous month, 11 articles tap-danced through my keyboard with ease and gaiety.
The irony of my current condition of (writer’s block) is that the first article I opened for curation was “Writer’s Block? Just Show Up and Misbehave.” It was picked up for distribution and has had a good flow of readership since then (especially for a newbie content writer). Have I failed my own bravado advice that I professed in my article? What’s the value to my words that earned me some claps and a few dollars, when even I, the self-professed guru of writer’s block, can’t benefit from them?
I feel guilty and like a fraud to those readers who read my article and found no value in the simplicity of one-dimensional perception on such a complex phenomenon as Writer’s Block, and ultimately motivation.
I don’t feel motivated to motivate myself. So, now what?
We all know the drill: just write. Just show up at the keyboard. There is a plethora of ways to motivate ourselves. Just google them. Let me reiterate, I know the how-to of self-motivation; I just don’t feel like I want to do anything about motivating my motivation to write.
Whereas lack of motivation can be a common occurrence, losing a “want” to motivate yourself, is more problematic. If any mental health professionals are reading these confessions, they are probably reaching out for their red flags to start waving them at me to make sure that what I am feeling is not a sign of depression. But for now let’s exclude a possibility of depression from our discussion.
The perplexing paradox of self-motivation
The paradox of self-motivation can be quite perplexing. We can come up with multiple excuses, and even valid reasons, to justify our lack of motivation. Especially now, during these difficult times, we can amass a range of reasons to resort to curling up under our comfort blanket and wake up once all this “daymare” is over.
One of the pieces of the paradox puzzle is that times of challenge are not always associated with loss of motivation. On the contrary, challenge and hardship can galvanize motivation.
My most prolific writing took place during one of the most difficult times of my life. The process and the product of writing turned into my defense mechanism. I didn’t need any sources of motivation to write. Writing itself became a source of motivation for staying strong in the face of my personal circumstances.
Another piece of the paradox: The dynamic of motivation has now flipped from writing being a source of motivation itself to not having motivation to motivate my writing. Sorry if you have to read this sentence more than once. Yes, it’s convoluted and dizzying, just like the feeling itself.
After a month, this dizzying dust of feelings is beginning to subside and give me a better view on the understanding of this phenomenon.
I put my emotions on quarantine
I found an answer to the void experienced for almost a month. When I could no longer mask my pain with high spirits, hope, and humor, I was afraid to take a chance of unintentionally spreading fear and frailty. So I quarantined my feelings from writing.
This view can be a mere excuse, but I will hold on to it for now, as it gives me a glimpse of hope that my break from writing it wasn’t because of my inability or a sign of failure. My mistake was not the non-writing — my mistake was writing about such a complex emotion as writer’s block in such a simplistic way that was not considerate of writers experiencing much complex emotions.
The journey of our individual intimate relationship with writing is not formulaic.
I hope that one day I will not concoct an article saying that I don’t want to have motivation to motivate my lack of motivation to write. This would be quite a rabbit hole to climb out of. But then again, the deeper our experience, the more insights we can come back with and share with each other.
