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>I would say yes, in large part. The solution is simple but not easy. The key is “Motivation follows action”. Maybe I've always misunderstood that common sayin

by jasode 5y ago

>I would say yes, in large part. The solution is simple but not easy. The key is “Motivation follows action”. Maybe I've always misunderstood that common saying but there are so many counterexamples that it doesn't seem to be true. E.g. I actually know how to cook and have already taken the "action" of home cooking many hundreds of times such as preparing spaghetti and baking cakes without any premade kits and yet -- I'm still not interested in cooking at all. At the same time, I can appreciate that others like chefs or hobbyists take a deep interest in cooking and take delight in combining brand new ingredients. However, even when I give a cookbook as a gift and let that book pass through my hands, it doesn't trigger any interest in cooking. Maybe another more widespread example is photography. Most people have cameras on smartphones now but most take photos as a utility function rather than some artistic photography interest. The act of taking photos doesn't really get most people over that threshold of being "interested in photography". E.g. they take a picture of where their car is parked in the airport as a reminder -- and then go on to think about everything else that's more interesting to them than photography. Likewise, making people do more math will make many (most?) become less interested in math. I think that's what some people mean by "generating internal interest is unsolvable". Where "Motivation Follows Action" makes much more sense is the limited scenario of already being interested in a particular domain but you're just temporarily stuck. E.g. a book author has written texts before but is now staring at a blank page. (Writer's Block.) So the idea is start writing anything -- even nonsense -- and then let the momentum of laying words down start feeding itself and then eventually you end up with a finished book.

goofist 5y ago
Re your cooking example. A virtue ethicist (Aristotle, Augustine, Confucius, ...) might say that you still have work to do. The idea is that knowing how to cook, and even being good at cooking, are not enough. You're not "perfected" in a particular virtue until you actually experience the value of the practices that the virtue involved. One way to go about "perfecting" a virtue, from a subjective perspective, is to look at those people you know who do enjoy cooking. These people are exemplars, and you have to be charitable, trusting that there is something to cooking that they see that you do not. You then try again, trying to emulate their approach to cooking - not just the recipes or even the procedures they follow, but also their attitudes toward it. That is how you come to experience the full excellence of cooking. In other words, in the virtue ethicist's view, cooking well doesn't by necessity make you a good cook.
laserlight 5y ago
> Where "Motivation Follows Action" makes much more sense is the limited scenario of already being interested in a particular domain but you're just temporarily stuck. Very good point. Perhaps it's a good tactic, but not a good strategy. I don't know what could make someone interested in a topic. One thing I can think of is discovering what aspects of experience one enjoys in the areas that they are already interested and transferring them to the new topic. Structuring the experience around the flow factors could be another one.
fijiaarone 5y ago
Maybe a better phrasing would then be "Motivation does not precede action". It seems perfectly reasonable to me that you can try something as a hobby, and if after honest effort, you're not interested in it and you'd rather do something else, by all means do so. But you're not actually interested in doing something until after you do it. You might be daydreaming about the idea of having done something because you saw someone else do it on TV or whatever, but until you've done it -- and tried to love it -- you can't really say you're interested in it. For two reasons: 1. You haven't tried it, so you don't know if you actually like it 2. By sheer definition, if you aren't willing to try something, you're not interested in doing it. If you'd rather eat pre-processed or pre-packaged food and save your time for pursuing your true passion of playing Tiddywinks or developing Javascript user interfaces, by all means do so. Just be sure to take care of your heath and make sure your true passion isn't sitting in the basement trolling people on the internet.

by jasode 5y ago

goofist 5y ago

Re your cooking example. A virtue ethicist (Aristotle, Augustine, Confucius, ...) might say that you still have work to do. The idea is that knowing how to cook, and even being good at cooking, are not enough. You're not "perfected" in a particular virtue until you actually experience the value of the practices that the virtue involved. One way to go about "perfecting" a virtue, from a subjective perspective, is to look at those people you know who do enjoy cooking. These people are exemplars, and you have to be charitable, trusting that there is something to cooking that they see that you do not. You then try again, trying to emulate their approach to cooking - not just the recipes or even the procedures they follow, but also their attitudes toward it. That is how you come to experience the full excellence of cooking. In other words, in the virtue ethicist's view, cooking well doesn't by necessity make you a good cook.

laserlight 5y ago

> Where "Motivation Follows Action" makes much more sense is the limited scenario of already being interested in a particular domain but you're just temporarily stuck. Very good point. Perhaps it's a good tactic, but not a good strategy. I don't know what could make someone interested in a topic. One thing I can think of is discovering what aspects of experience one enjoys in the areas that they are already interested and transferring them to the new topic. Structuring the experience around the flow factors could be another one.

fijiaarone 5y ago

Maybe a better phrasing would then be "Motivation does not precede action". It seems perfectly reasonable to me that you can try something as a hobby, and if after honest effort, you're not interested in it and you'd rather do something else, by all means do so. But you're not actually interested in doing something until after you do it. You might be daydreaming about the idea of having done something because you saw someone else do it on TV or whatever, but until you've done it -- and tried to love it -- you can't really say you're interested in it. For two reasons: 1. You haven't tried it, so you don't know if you actually like it 2. By sheer definition, if you aren't willing to try something, you're not interested in doing it. If you'd rather eat pre-processed or pre-packaged food and save your time for pursuing your true passion of playing Tiddywinks or developing Javascript user interfaces, by all means do so. Just be sure to take care of your heath and make sure your true passion isn't sitting in the basement trolling people on the internet.