Katawa Shoujo Forums

Plain and simple, what's your motivation, your drive? How do you look for it, find it? How does it impact you?
You can completely skip the following paragraphs, as they consist mainly of me bitching about boring stuff.

I figured, KS seems to be a rather inspirational and motivational game, though that doesn't seem to be intended by the devs. I know it more or less had a motivaitonal impact on me, made me try to improve myself more in both a physical and psychological way, but I see so many of you are doing better than me in different ways. More motivated, stronger and more determined.

The thing is that other than KS, nothing seems to get me motivated much or for too long. In the end, my life is stuck in a rather stressfull stagnation and is threatening to fall to the worse in ways I can't impact much, as hard as I try. I'm not depressed, never have been, but all my attempts to motivate myself to do anything of importance or requiering long term effort fail rather quickly. I just don't feel like I have anything to fight for. I want to change that. I want to improve, to not fall in stagnation, but I can't seem to keep to that.

So help me out here, help me understand. What is it that makes you tick? How do you keep to whatever it is that is your thing? Anything goes, from picking up your grades so your dad doesn't kill your internet to saving your princess from some generic dungeon-keeping dragon, aka love.

Well, for that last bit, my princess ALWAYS BEING IN ANOTHER FUCKING CASTLE keeps the journey going...But really, KS motivated me. Beyond that, materialism motivates me to get money. Hedonism motivates me to do things I will enjoy. But as far as other things, I just sort of wing it. My motivation, when it comes, is entirely self-serving. Materialism demands I have things, so I get money. Hedonism demands I enjoy myself, so I make whatever changes are needed to do that.

If you have nothing to fight for then you're not THREATENED by stagnation. You're already there. If you dislike that, there's your motivation.

i cant help you there, cause i have 0 motivation

mainly the stuff i do is self-serving

yummines wrote:self-serving

That's a motive, isn't it? With this forum's "Do it for yourself." mantra, that damn well better be. xD All motivation is self-serving. Sometimes it's just not as obvious. The man who spends a life in charity does so because it pleases him to be charitable, as self-serving a motive as the greedy scrooge who makes Tiny Tim work on Christmas.

My motive? Well this leprechaun came to me and said he was going to kill me so--

Wait, what are we talking about? Oh, just general life motivations? I seek entertainment, be it through good food or good games or good writing (Even if i have to be the one to write it). Simple motivations like that are best, they keep you from becoming a psychotic prick. I mean more of a psychotic prick, like going from George Carlin levels to Darth Baby Eater (a.k.a Dick Cheney) levels.

Alright, put it this way.

You know how people take up running because of Emi? Yeah...I don't do that. But what I did instead is consider how I've neglected taking care of my body in that physical regard, do a careful lookup of how I could stay fit in ways that are much more personally acceptable to me - and then I kept doing it regularly for the past 2 months, never missing a term so far. And it works. So I don't try to imitate Emi by running every day. Instead I take care of my body in my own way, because Emi reminded me that it's an important part of my life.

It's that same basic principle when it comes to anything that happens in KS that I find inspirational. I never, ever copy it outright without at least some of my own thought put into it. For example, my dad has been trying to get me into his basketball team for some time and always said I'd exercise much easier that way than doing a routine of my own design every second day. But I know that wouldn't be right. I'm not the kind of person who gets a lot out of being part of a team, doing group sports - I get a lot more out of solitary exercises and paying attention to how my body reacts to the different routines. Because that's the kind of person I am.

Similarly, running ala Emi would not be for me. I tried that kind of intense workout once, all I wound up with was tearing my muscles to the point I couldn't exercise at all. So I'm a lot more comfortable with gradual, but still exhausting, muscle exercises and paying attention to how my body reacts so that I don't sprain anything inadvertently. And going just a little bit harder every day, pushing myself gradually towards better and better results - not like Hisao, who just goes and tries to race the champ on his second attempt there.

Or apply Hanako being inspiring to people to pay more attention to the shy ones around them...yeah, again it's not just that for me. She inspires me to pay more attention to the little details you usually miss when it comes to your friends and family. Like when you say something and you see that moment of dissapointment in the other person, before they try to cover it up with lame humor or somesuch - being more attentive to that and asking them, if they're really okay with it. That'd be how Hanako inspires me - again, like Emi: I don't imitate what happens during her route, I think about what her arc was about at its core (lack of communication brought on by fear) and try to work around that.

Or heck! It might not even be a character within the game! Listening to NicolAmarfi's tracks reminded me of the kind of music I'd love to make myself. But again, not through outright plagiarism...just the essence of what makes his music moreso memorable to me than most complicated classical tracks I've gotten used to hearing and obviously with my own spin.

Honestly i can't help much either since you basically described me as well. I am not depressed and have not been since highschool in 2006/2007, that was bad but i moved past that. Now i am content with my life and its pretty good, but i lack motivation and feel like its kind of stagnant. I have tons of stuff i want to do, i have stories and fictional characters i want to make into my own story and hopefully see published or animated some day, but i just can not find the drive to actually sit down and do it, so motivation is difficult for me right now.

I labour under the false impression that in this world, out there somewhere, there is a 'Hanako' for me. Not a burn victim with a self-imposed exile from society but a girl with traits like her. My train of thought is that I am changing myself for the better, getting fit, picking up hobbies and learning new languages for the hell of it, so that one day, when the fates should have it, I meet my Hanako, I'm going to sweep her off her feet. Some people call that delusional and that I should be doing all that for myself, but clearly that isn't exactly working out or I wouldn't be in this situation in the first place, now would I?

Honestly, feedback is what motivates me.

Whether it be drawing, writing, conversing, playing a video game or anything else, I do it for feedback - discourse.

As far back as elementary school, I've always been motivated by the assent or dissent of my peers. Throughout my 31 years, I've always hungered for someone to look at, read or otherwise notice what I was doing and offer comments. Unfortunately, I still don't quite know why that is, but the fact remains.

Lately, I've been able to get a lot of feedback -constructive criticism- by writing and posting various stories on the fan-fiction forum. What motivated me to continue has always been and remains the comments and feedback -positive and negative- about what I've written.

KS convinced me that my high school sucks and that I probably should find a new one and become a counselor for grade school.
Honestly, I've always thought about it, but I ended up reading completely different classes. But, if I manage to sort out my own problems, I want to be there for others.

Mostly I'm motivated by my friends, we know each other by some 2o years now, and after all those years we still spend weekends together playing RPG, watching movies, drinking and partying awkwardly.

In the past years much has happened, babies were born, girlfriends went and came back, some small fights and the occasional almost lethal car accident.

Yet, the group remains the same.

yummines wrote:i cant help you there, cause i have 0 motivation

mainly the stuff i do is self-serving

I'm about the same. I do stuff just because I can. I make tons of ringtones about any random audio I can get my hands on. I have a growing collection of pics that make me laugh. Made a few random videos I put up on youtube. I put in about 10-15 miles on my bike every day. I hang out with friends. I do stuff because I can, the hard part is thinking of stuff I want to do. My point is, when you find something you even slightly care about, you clomp onto it and never give up.

I think understanding the significance of short-term pleasure vs long-term pleasure is what helped me with motivation.

If you have something big you wanna do (i.e. fitness, getting a better job, general life improvement), you have to cut out other little things (vices, i.e. watching tv and surfing the net) to focus on it for a little while. You have to make sacrifices somewhere, otherwise you'll get overwhelmed and lose motivation. You make these little cuts not to deprive yourself of pleasure, but with the knowledge that while those vices give you some short-term fun, you'll get even MORE pleasure and your life will be enriched down the line if you stick with what you're doing.

I've heard the metaphor of the pruning knife - sometimes you have to trim off the little fruits and branches and shit, to get even bigger juicier fruit in the next harvest.

that wasn't very eloquent, but hey

ook wrote:that wasn't very eloquent, but hey

Nope, but it made sense.

Keneshiro wrote:I labour under the false impression that in this world, out there somewhere, there is a 'Hanako' for me. Not a burn victim with a self-imposed exile from society but a girl with traits like her. My train of thought is that I am changing myself for the better, getting fit, picking up hobbies and learning new languages for the hell of it, so that one day, when the fates should have it, I meet my Hanako, I'm going to sweep her off her feet. Some people call that delusional and that I should be doing all that for myself, but clearly that isn't exactly working out or I wouldn't be in this situation in the first place, now would I?

I've gone through a similar phase, and it seems to work pretty well. Only difference is that I've never known what a perfect girl for me would be, so I just worked towards being the best I could when I met her.
Right now though, life's throwing a lot of rocks and shit at me and my only motivation is to stay strong enough, both mentally and physically, to endure it. So far seems to be more or less working.

I apreciate the feedback people, keep it comming!

Hmm, I dont have something extensive to say but my main motivation is passion.

I have many inspirations and hero's that keep me going no matter how big or small and also things that remind me of why I do what I do. If I ever hit a dead patch I just go for a long walk and think, I always end up on why I keep pushing forward. I guess I also feel like I need to prove myself and I cant do that if I give up.

I wont get any more specific though.