Motivation

[SawQuart]

I recently wrote a new update on my blog about motivation and why I am motivated in Computer Science and programming. I haven't ever really done a blog entry this in-depth before, but I was interested in what your stories are too. For me, it was being shunned from society and needing to prove myself.

@Me:

> Computer Science is a very vast, stressful, and oftentimes undocumented subject. In the midst of this chaos, very few emerge as true geniuses and sages of the topic. Driven by motivation, we all strive to break that point of immersion. What motivates you?
>
> I'll start with my story. For many years of my early childhood, I was infatuated with PC games. At first, they provided me with a past time and general enjoyment. Years of my life rolled by until I finally reached a stage many regard as the worst in their lives: being a "tween". This awkward and harsh chapter in my life sent me into a spiral– corroding my social life and making me question my role as myself. I began a relative depression as my social life deteriorated into shreds. It wasn't that I was that different from everyone else-- it was that I simply did not know how to stand up for myself in physical and verbal confrontations. A blow to my self-confidence and image was the result.
>
> While I examined myself and my role in society, more depression came. One thing saved me from complete depression and deterioration-- the computer. In my younger days, I would limit myself to 2 hours on the computer-- most of which was filled with time-wasting video games. As I encountered my depression, I began to develop new habits on my measly laptop... a desire to become someone and show the world what I was. During this renaissance of my life, I began to pick up music production, computer programming, pixel art, and many other means of expressing myself. My computer life wasn't the only thing that improved dramatically though, because I soon rocketed in my swimming career as I went from 4000th in the country for my age, to 4th.
>
> I was under the illusion that this would solve my social life. I soon found out that while this renaissance did help my social life, nothing could make it how I wanted it to be. For years, I had been spending my whole day on the computer, secluded, instead of socializing. When I was exposed to the public, I was swimming-- another individual activity with very little social interaction. My grades, since I was spending my time programming and relieving stress with video games, had plummeted.
>
> Recently, more things have gone down-hill in my social life. Without going into detail, I have become exactly what I was back in my tween years. I have admittedly barely matured in my social life and my lack of experience with interaction made me lose interest in having friends. The few friends I had didn't provide the support, so I became introverted once again. I cover up my sadness with happiness, and few are able to see the hurt. And you know what is good about all of this? I love it.
>
> It is now that I know what I must do. With my life in disarray once more, I must carry on and prove myself once again. Another challenge awaits me, and I am fully prepared to conquer this mountain. The people who threw me into this state will eventually get what they deserve when they realize just how wrong they were about me. While many may view this as depression, I view this as a way to prove myself to the people who didn't care before. I view this as a chance to become something and prove to everyone that "the idiot" is sometimes the most intelligent.
>
> This is what motivates me. I am no longer a person who will wait around for others, but rather a person who loves the competition of the rest and will never be happy until I am above those who ignored my depression. This isn't to say that I'm not compassionate, because that would go against my philosophy. I love to think of myself as better than those who disregard me, and pushing them down is no way of going about that. Even though I stand for myself, I want to stand for those like me as well. Computers and programming saved my life, and I owe it to everyone who helped me.
>
> Others are motivated by themselves, by their peers, and by their common ingenuity. I respect all of these other positions and wish them well. I love to help those who are new into this field, as I still am, but would also love help in return as well. As I conclude, I would like to mention that all I wish for is perspective. Respect the rights of others, because those who are weak will eventually be strong.

This whole blog was actually inspired by an SAT essay question. As I stated, I don't want this to be an emotional story, but rather an explanation of myself and what I'm driven by. And no, I don't consider myself forever alone because I'm happy with solitude. Social lives are overrated in my opinion. I still love to go to parties and have fun some times, but that doesn't satisfy me as much as when I'm alone.

After talking to Stephan and a few others about this, I realize that we all have motivations and reasons why we are "geeks" and love this shit. Stephan, for example, is motivated by himself and his desire for knowledge and understanding. I know all of you guys have your own personal stories– whether they are as lengthy as mine or not. I also know that some of you guys have awesome social lives and millions of friends, and I love you guys as well.

So, what are you motivated by and why are you here? Why do you spend time here when you could be elsewhere in the real world?

[Blog post is here](http://jungletoe.com/post/20828909807/motivation)

[Drummerpete]

I don't have millions of friends, but I do have a social life (somewhat, at least).
The reason I spend most time online is because I can be quite shy in person, until I've had a few drinks anyway. It's much easier to be myself behind a keyboard and screen.

As for motivation, I've been struggling to come up with an answer for that, lately.

Last August, or the start of September, I began my Interactive Media course at College. This was supposed to consist of mostly web design.
Very quickly, I realised the tutor knew less than I did about, well, a lot of things.
A quick example is:
She likes Comic Sans MS, she uses tables in web design, she said "w3schools is endorsed by the W3C"… And it doesn't get any better.
Since then, I stopped listening to her, since I wasn't going to learn anything valuable.
I then realised that I knew everything that was going to be taught in that course, and anything that I didn't know wasn't going to be taught.
So I thought, what's the point of going to college? I wasn't learning anything & the tutor had sucked all the fun out of website design/development. All I was learning was academics sucks.

So now, I don't even know what I'm going to do after this course finishes.

I could go on to year two which I'm assuming, if she still teaches, will be much of the same and drive me insane.

So, really, I'm struggling to find something to do with my life.

TL;DR:
College sucks. Don't know what to do with life.

[SawQuart]

About your first paragraph: I completely agree. It's not that I don't have "friends" but rather that none of them understand me. I'm basically a geek trapped in a jock's life, so both the "geek" group at my school and the "jock" group within my swim team don't work well with me. I'm too shy and awkward to be a jock while I'm too athletic to be a geek. I guess we all find people later in life, but the point of this is to say that I love being by myself because society has never done any good for me.

About school: I'm in a similar situation. My computer science teacher is teaching us Java and forces us to use heavy OOP. Since most of the work in his class is homework, I never feel motivated to do it. The key for me is finding a REASON for what you're doing. Also, GOALS. I have the ultimate goal of actually releasing a full game some day. This motivates me.

[PD]

My intial motivation to learn programming was Pokemon :P A friend told me about Pokemon Crater and I got hooked but sadly a month or two later the game went down, so making a good Pokemon game was my motivation, I realised pretty quickly that I'd need to edit the source code of Eclipse to get anywhere, so for me that was the start.

I do have friends that understand me. They know I do programming, they're always giving me ideas, suggestions and so forth. I'm recognised in school as Sleepy, the guy who sleeps through lesson and still aces exam :cheesy: It's not that I don't have a social life but I just spend more time online.

[Yxxe]

Well, about 3/4 years ago I was bored on holiday and decided to draw up some plans for a game. That game was actually OTLR, but I still was unsure what engine to use. I'd seen Eclipse before, and after having a look at other possibilities, I got hold of some version of Eclipse (most likely Total Eclipse 1.0 or Eclipse Evo 2.3?) and started developing. As some of the older members on here may remember, OTLR was in a pretty dire state, but I guess my motivation started by getting responses from the Eclipse Community.

I then basically "acquired" a copy of VB6 and started coding. By then I was just about to start college. I was studying a Computing unit which "luckily" included Visual Basic.NET programming. During my college period was when I started to learn most of Visual Basic (I guess, I can't actually remember how I learned beforehand) which was then applied to OTLR. I guess rewriting the game five times also taught me more about programming games rather than the syntax. 6 months before University I started with C/C++ and started applying what I had learned with Eclipse. I'm now nearing the end of my first year of University and no first-year has as much knowledge as I do about programming and programming games (not bragging, just trying to hit home how much self-motivation helps ;] ). It also makes me happy that I'm around people which share the same passion as I do.

In review, I guess I'm motivated by doing what I love, but also the urge to further my own knowledge. In response to the question _"Why am I here?_, I'm here because I'm on the path to making a career out of programming games, and I guess to a certain extent I have the Eclipse Community to thank for actually helping me find out what I'm good at.

[saadhamza]

Generally, i'm motivated by other people. Seeing other individuals do brilliant things makes me "jealous" and i start wanting to be able to do the same thing. It's almost like a competition, but with no winners.

Another massive motivation for me is my craving of knowledge. Just general knowledge. I want to know everything. That's also my downfall, since i can't keep to the same subject for long, i keep leaping around and learning them all at once. It's crazy, and fun, and it's what keeps me going.

[SawQuart]

@Zonova:

> Generally, i'm motivated by other people. Seeing other individuals do brilliant things makes me "jealous" and i start wanting to be able to do the same thing. It's almost like a competition, but with no winners.

Ironically, that's what makes me demotivated. I want to be better than everyone so it seems hard to imagine how much further I actually have to go. Recently I've been trying to turn this into motivation to inspire me and it's generally worked.

[PD]

One main source for motivation for me is, is seeing people supporting, complementing me for my work and so forth. Getting praise makes me want to continue working on that project.

[Keebler Elf]

Money.

[IceCream Tuesday]

It's bad. But, my motivation comes out of my habits of drug use.

[Jeff]

I really don't know why I spend so much time on the internet. I just like it here. I have my close circle of friends who are awesome and I spend a good bit of time with, but everyone else I know is either dumb, douchey or weird.

I make games because I want to. I love playing games, I love figuring out problems in code, I love creating good looking art. I like accomplishing stuff a lot, and making games makes me feel like I've accomplished a lot.

[DrNova]

I'm motivated out of personal interest and ability to achieve fast enough to meet the criteria of my ADD. In the general sense.

As far as Eclipse, I was motivated by the thought of creating something other people could enjoy. Unfortunatley, bugs and constantly changing versions slowed me down, then eventually the full coding switch was made and removed the ability I had to work at a pace I was satisfied with, and I lost interest.

As far as why I poke around here occasionally still, habit perhaps?

[saadhamza]

@Jungle:

> Ironically, that's what makes me demotivated. I want to be better than everyone so it seems hard to imagine how much further I actually have to go. Recently I've been trying to turn this into motivation to inspire me and it's generally worked.

Yeah, that happens with me too. I think that the feeling of learning more while competing sort of over-weighs the anger, for me. Still, i often find myself severely depressed  at any moment i feel a little "incompetent".  I think it will go away with age :3