What Drives you?

[anthrodisiac]

Wonderful question.

My main drives:
Rampant non-comformity, destructuring social constructs, writing as a tool for understanding human processes, mild catharsis, coping mechanisms, and exploring complex intersections between science and philosophy.

Plus, sexy animal people.

 

[AG31]

destructuring social constructs,

Not sure what you mean. Some examples?

 

[Erozetta]

Boredom and anxiety.

I wrote an essay on why I write and it starts with what drives me, basically:

"I write because I have to.

Writing is a form of communication which can force the other participant to listen to everything you have to say before they engage with you. At least, that's the intent. It's how I get my voice heard by those who would prefer to talk over me. I'll never be louder than them, so I work to my strengths in order to get my position across."

That's basically it. I wasn't allowed to talk as a kid. I wasn't allowed to do much more than exist, be obedient, and be pretty. I'm not very good at any of those things. (I am good at being obedient, but only in my own way. I will follow the rules but there's always a loophole, and I will find it.) But I am very good at internalizing and ruminating on things and writing lets me see things from outside of myself in a way that I can't always do with thought and imagination.

So, the main thing that drives me, I guess, is collecting my thoughts to try and make sense of my own mind in order to learn how to communicate those thoughts in a way that doesn't show the chaos behind the scenes.

 

[SmilingLez]

What drives me - accepting the challenge to export the thoughts in my head to coherent words on paper

 

[NuclearFairy]

Well, the simple answer is, it's cheaper than most other hobbies out there I've enjoyed.

The more complicated one. I used to read a lot, like minimum 8 hours a day, spread throughout the day yes but still. And the reading would spawn stories within my own brain that'd bounce around and morph and stick and sink and come back. And I'd talk about them incessantly with my SO. He never seemed to mind, but I sometimes felt like a pest.

And then, I hit a rough patch with my roommate, I needed to understand her better than I did, I needed to get into the head of someone who'd seen some shit. So I grabbed an empty notebook, and a pencil and I started writing, and my SO asked to be allowed to edit them.

The flood gates were opened.

After that, I continued writing that story, but now those stories that used to just bounce around and evolve, started demanding I'd write them down. I could no longer just think of them as I went to sleep I felt a deep need to write them down.

At other times, I'd want to understand an emotion better, so I'd write something to help invoke it in me.

And complex emotions, I'm constantly writing about those in an attempt to understand them. Like, how can you be angry and proud at the same time? I think I'm getting a handle on it, not sure.

Yeah sure, very few of my characters are human, but I think they're helping me understand how to be human.

 

[anthrodisiac]

Not sure what you mean. Some examples?

Prior to Lit, I was a heavy satire writer. I'm on the spectrum, so I had to break down social interactions and constructs a lot just to understand how any of it worked, because none of it made sense or came naturally. So I spent a lot of time trying to drill down on why someone was, "Cool," or, "Popular," only to find out that nobody could actually articulate a real, concrete reason. All that analysis and realization translated into a lot of my writing, primarily by poking fun at said social constructs. Society collectively agrees on a lot of things that, if you were to look at them objectively, don't really hold up as the "truths" we say they are: race, class, intelligence, popularity, attractiveness. It's all agreed-upon constructions that reflect what society values at any given time, subject to change at the drop of a hat.

My favorite one to play with though, by far, is morality. Everybody thinks their moral system is superior and the only one that's "good," and things outside that are "evil." But then you have another group that has morals that conflict, and they say their things are "good" and the other things are "evil." Who's right? People get so wrapped up in thinking their beliefs are objectively superior, but can't articulate why beyond, "Well, it just is." And there are so many edge cases involved that easily surpass most of what someone says it uncontestably "good," and yet they would still do it anyway because "reasons." Nobody thinks they're the bad guy, and anyone is capable of justifying acts most of us would consider attrocities if it's in defense of what that person considers "good."

In the end, values and morals are all squishy subjectivity and arbitrary boundaries and rules. Super fun to poke fun at. Not even poking fun at any one set of values or morals, which is where most satirists tend to go because they have issues with one moral system or another, but I like to poke fun at the idea of objective morality as a whole. Not just because the idea is rife with self-justifications, but because even within one person's rigid set of morals, there are so many cavets and carveouts that the whole thing becomes hollow, and all your left is the shell and pretense of a value system.

But now I mostly write sexy animal people stories

 

[BlazonG]

I’m mentally pressed to explore the many possibilities of power exchange. Always have been.

 

[AG31]

Prior to Lit, I was a heavy satire writer. I'm on the spectrum, so I had to break down social interactions and constructs a lot just to understand how any of it worked, because none of it made sense or came naturally. So I spent a lot of time trying to drill down on why someone was, "Cool," or, "Popular," only to find out that nobody could actually articulate a real, concrete reason. All that analysis and realization translated into a lot of my writing, primarily by poking fun at said social constructs. Society collectively agrees on a lot of things that, if you were to look at them objectively, don't really hold up as the "truths" we say they are: race, class, intelligence, popularity, attractiveness. It's all agreed-upon constructions that reflect what society values at any given time, subject to change at the drop of a hat.

My favorite one to play with though, by far, is morality. Everybody thinks their moral system is superior and the only one that's "good," and things outside that are "evil." But then you have another group that has morals that conflict, and they say their things are "good" and the other things are "evil." Who's right? People get so wrapped up in thinking their beliefs are objectively superior, but can't articulate why beyond, "Well, it just is." And there are so many edge cases involved that easily surpass most of what someone says it uncontestably "good," and yet they would still do it anyway because "reasons." Nobody thinks they're the bad guy, and anyone is capable of justifying acts most of us would consider attrocities if it's in defense of what that person considers "good."

In the end, values and morals are all squishy subjectivity and arbitrary boundaries and rules. Super fun to poke fun at. Not even poking fun at any one set of values or morals, which is where most satirists tend to go because they have issues with one moral system or another, but I like to poke fun at the idea of objective morality as a whole. Not just because the idea is rife with self-justifications, but because even within one person's rigid set of morals, there are so many cavets and carveouts that the whole thing becomes hollow, and all your left is the shell and pretense of a value system.

But now I mostly write sexy animal people stories

You've given me a new angle on my own compulsion to analyze and analyze.