A Series Of Posts On Motivation Connection

A SERIES OF POSTS ON MOTIVATION: CONNECTION Assuming we’re nonetheless hanging in on the “Six Human Needs” I launched a few weeks in the past, an excellent start line with reference to what drives us all, I’m urgent ahead with the fourth of the six: connection. Connection has been called the first of the “elementary needs” in that not everybody is particularly motivated by, say, a need for significance, but everyone craves some sort of connectionâ€"connection to different people, largely, but also to teams (ideologies, religions, and so forth), and even issues. Starting with the obvious, I’ll fall back on what I wrote in The Guide to Writing Fantasy and Science Fictionon the subject of romance: Both fantasy and science fiction require fully realized characters, and that often consists of some type of romance. People have accomplished extraordinary issues in the name of affection, both positive and unfavorable. When you’re growing your characters, it’s necessary to know who they go house to each night timeâ€"o r who they hope sometime to go residence to, or who they usedto go house to however can’t anymore. Like action and violence, a nicely-developed love curiosity is all about balance and motivation. Even essentially the most male-dominated sword and sorcery or navy science fiction story ought to still have some sexual dynamic. One of the greatest fantasy tales of all time, “Red Nails” by Robert E. Howard, nonetheless may need had as a lot blade-swinging motion with simply Conan, but when Howard added Valeria to the mix, it burst into life. Conan liked her, and when her life was at stake, we were drawn into their story. Note that I mentioned “their” story. Even although Valeria spends most of “Red Nails” more or less “off digital camera” she remains Conan’s major motivation throughout. In my online Pulp Fiction Workshop we speak about taking what pulp authors like Robert E. Howard have to teach us and filtering it by way of a contemporary sensibility. So your charact ers’ relationships gained’t be fairly as retrograde as Howard’s “barbarian saves the woman” (though Valeria is fairly tough in her own proper) however a hero/heroine could be strongly motivated by the will to attract or rescue or in any other case achieve the favors of either a big different or a hoped-for important different. Actually, villains may be motivated in the same means, however again, a hero (male or feminine) is somebody who’s motivations we will understand (“get” the love curiosity) and whose strategies we find inspirational or otherwise optimistic. A villain is somebody who’s motivations we are able to perceive (also “get” the love curiosity) however whose methods we discover abhorrent. How you outline words like “get” and what these methods actually are… that’s known as a narrative. And an emotional and even romantic connection isn’t all the time about intercourse. Mark Manson, in his article “Sex and Our Psychological Needs,” wrote : Sex is a technique we use to fulfill our psychological needs and never a need itself. How do we know this? Because there is no proof that celibacy or asexuality is definitely bodily or psychologically unhealthy. You don’t die from not having enough intercourse. In reality, there are lots of well being dangers becauseof intercourse. One may even argue that there are psychological and health benefits from not having intercourse. And he continues… On the opposite hand, if psychological wants go unmet for lengthy durations of time, it'll completely fuck us up physically and psychologically. People develop neuroses, addictions, and even delusions to get their needs met. Research reveals that social isolation is extra harmful than alcoholism or smoking. Depression and stress are related with all kinds of horrible physical issues. So “connection” on the romantic level doesn’t mean your characters need to, y’know… do it. But note that he mentioned: “Research shows that soc ial isolation is extra dangerous than alcoholism or smoking.” Though I can’t converse to the actual existence of that research it definitely at least seems affordable to consider that social isolation is unhealthy for us. Prisoners who're dangerous boys in prison get tossed into solitary confinementâ€"social isolation is a punishment even in a place the place most people you’re connecting with on a daily foundation are convicted felons. Why is that this? Sarah Rudell Beach wrote in her Left Brain Buddha article “Breaking Up is Hard to Do: Why We Need Connection and Friendship”: We are born long before our brains are mature, for the easy reason that we'd never make it out of our moms with totally developed craniums. We are born helpless, and therefore we’re wired to connect in powerful relationships with different people so we could be taken care of and develop up huge and robust and send our genetic material on into the long run. And of course romantic relationships end up being a giant part of thisâ€"particularly within the sending on of genetic materialâ€"however in the identical means a child wants a mother, not a lover, we regularly seek out connection with others in a lot of different ways, from a lot of totally different folks or teams of people. In my on-line Worldbuilding course I ask students to sit down down and, as shortly as attainable, write an inventory of every group they belong toâ€"every means in which they share one thing with some other individuals. These don’t have to be formal groups with actual membership cards or somethingâ€"simply something you share with a couple of different individual. I get a lot of issues like “husband” or “mother” or “American” but in addition “Subaru driver,” “Dr. Who fan,” and many other issues like that. I’m a Trekkieâ€"I’m related to that fan base. I’m a gamerâ€"old fashioned, pencil and paper RPGs, that is. That means a lot to me. I’m a science fiction fan, a fantasy fan, a horror fan… my record goes on. And this connects me to other individuals. And your characters, nevertheless bizarre the world by which they live, should have an analogous listing of groups, of non-public connections. These groups will change, our connections altering together with them as time and circumstances go by. Sometimes we can see this, in our own lives and in fiction, and the sooner that transition takes place the extra dramatic the disconnect, like on this bit from Joe M. McDermott’s The Fortress at the End of Time: The question I ask of you, my confessor, is that this: I took the facet of justice and righteousness, with the oppressed girls, and this was another step in the diminishment of my profession. This ought to have been rewarded by God. Instead, the men appeared upon me as if I weren't worthy of my uniform, as if the guilt I felt for one woman’s death was sufficient to make me lose sight of the accepted gender-imbalanced realities of our posting. Why w as I diminished for attempting to be simply? Unless my ultimate reward was my crime against the universe, and it was no sin, then what else might it imply? At least the ladies on the station had some respect for me. Jensen and I ended up on the identical cycle all the way down to the planet, and he or she was kinder to me than before, when she ought to have been furious. At the time, I interpreted it to my silly sense of justice. Here we see a character shedding his connection to 1 group for having nurtured his connection to anotherâ€"and he suffers for it. Strangely, and certainly of interest to fantasy authors when it comes to a character’s connection to something like a sword or some magic item, or a science fiction character’s connection with a starship or different piece of know-how, is the fact that we’re also able to forming sturdy bonds with things. Han Solo and Captain Kirk each love their starshipsâ€"not in a weird, romantic way, however in the identical method actua l individuals can love their vehicles, a connection that led Darryl Harrison to ask “Is Tech Taking Away Our Emotional Connection With Cars?” in the era of ride sharing and so forth: Traditionally, automobiles have been about need and need. They seize so many emotions for so many people. They serve a objective and create an emotional connection, no matter how one feels about them. In today’s fast paced, increasingly connected world, will the vehicles of the long run preserve emotional connections with their drivers or has know-how increasingly eroded that connection? Will the introduction of increasingly more journey sharing choices, born out of new ranges of connectivity and technology, break our connection with our automobiles? I’ve seen people bemoaning the loss of vinyl records, typewriters, and different obsolete expertiseâ€"why not vehicles? In Darryl Harrison’s list of teams he might have “automobile lover” and “reluctant Uber user,” but the group he’s act ually talking to here is the previous. His desire to really feel higher by sharing this pain with like-minded individuals speaks on to them, nearly looking for permission to let goâ€"or help in hanging on. Going back to Tony Robbins again, he stated: “Most individuals’s lives are a direct reflection of the expectation of their peer group.” This is true. But it’s not at all times positive. I’ll leave you with this bit from “The Loved Dead” by H.P. Lovecraft & C.M. Eddy, Jr. during which a need for connection goes… Lovecraftian… I haunted the death-chamber the place the physique of my mom lay, my soul athirst for the devilish nectar that seemed to saturate the air of the darkened room. Every breath strengthened me, lifted me to towering heights of seraphic satisfaction. I knew, now, that it was however a type of drugged delirium which should quickly pass and leave me correspondingly weakened by its malign power, but I may no more management my longing than I could un twist the Gordian knots in the already tangled skein of my destiny. I knew, too, that via some strange Satanic curse my life depended upon the lifeless for its driver; that there was a singularity in my make-up which responded solely to the awesome presence of some lifeless clod. Connect with that. â€"Philip Athans About Philip Athans Fill in your particulars under or click on an icon to log in: You are commenting utilizing your WordPress.com account. (Log Out/ Change) You are commenting utilizing your Google account. (Log Out/ Change) You are commenting utilizing your Twitter account. (Log Out/ Change) You are commenting using your Facebook account. (Log Out/ Change) Connecting to %s Notify me of latest comments by way of email. Notify me of new posts via e mail. Enter your email address to subscribe to Fantasy Author's Handbook and obtain notifications of new posts by e-mail. Join 4,779 other followers Sign me up! RSS - Posts RSS - Comments