Everyday Canvas

İntrinsic Motivation // Women in Fiction and Real Life

Prompt: Think about these three things ... Play, Passion and Purpose
In my life, where do I play? What am I passionate about? What is my purpose? Are there any commonalities among these areas?
What do your answers tell you about your intrinsic motivation?

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The meaning of life is to give meaning to life, and this is where play, passion, and purpose comes in. In my case, these three have merged over the years. In my young adult days, they were somewhat separate. Over the years, I learned to mix them into a solution, something similar to cooking a custard. Sugar, milk, eggs, and flavorings are four different items, but when mixed and cooked together, they give us something pleasant to eat.

If you are defining intrinsic motivation as performing an action or behavior because one enjoys the activity itself, then life itself is my intrinsic motivation. Although some things that come up may not be to my liking, I still enjoy adjusting to or fighting against them, because I enjoy life. I have always loved life, but not because I had it easy. Far from the truth, but I don’t like to dwell on the negatives. Their mention, if I ever do, turns out under a veil, either in poetry or fiction, and that always surprises me. I think, “How did this surface again? Hadn’t I dealt with it, already?” Yet, my life and all our lives are our very own encyclopedias, and we have every right to refer to them whenever we need them.

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Prompt: How much can we—should we–embrace women, in fiction and IRL, whose lives, if not their very persons, are enviably “better” than ours, more attractive, more comfortable, and seemingly happier? Do we admire them, judge them, or both? Are we secretly pleased when they, too, encounter life’s inevitable obstacles, or do we feel sorry for them? So much depends on their likeability, on how heavily or lightly they wield their power.

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This all depends on the premise and storyline. Speaking for myself, I like to read about strong women from any walk of life, lucky or unlucky with their circumstances, but I have also come across and liked characters who were mousy in the beginning of a story, yet they learned to stand strong on their own two feet by the end.

Let’s face it, if any character--male or female--had it all nice and easy, there wouldn’t be a story. A story needs conflict and characters in dire straits, so they can fight against misfortunes (or even fortunes) and come out on top or lose. Without their fight, there wouldn’t be fiction.

As real life can reflect fiction in some way, similar criteria apply for me there, as well; however, I wouldn’t hold it against any woman if she had it good all through her life and didn’t have to struggle, if I could find such a female. So far, anyone I have known and met and heard about had some rain falling into her life. If I could find such a person, I guess I'd like her just as well, but I haven't. With any person, when you scratch the surface, you'll find some joy and varying degrees of hurt.

I suppose, it is life itself that provides the pain or, at least, some injury to any human being. When it comes to defining life, it is what it is.