Motivation is the more assertive cousin of willingness, and the emotional component of assertiveness. While the willing person will act if necessary, the motivated person seeks to act.
Real
True Narratives
- Rebecca Traister, Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger (Simon & Schuster, 2018): a “rousing look at the political uses of this supposedly unfeminine emotion”.
- Jenny Boully, Betwixt-and-Between: Essays on the Writing Life (Coffee House Press, 2018): “Boully addresses the impulse to write”.
Technical and Analytical Readings
Photographs
Documentary and Educational Films
Imaginary
Fictional Narratives
Poetry
Out of a cell into this darkened space—
The end at twenty-five!
My tongue could not speak what stirred within me,
And the village thought me a fool.
Yet at the start there was a clear vision,
A high and urgent purpose in my soul
Which drove me on trying to memorize
The Encyclopedia Britannica!
[Edgar Lee Masters, “Frank Drummer”]
Music: Composers, artists, and major works
John Coltrane is an iconic figure in contemporary jazz. His hard-driving bop and post-bop jazz set a standard. “Coltrane remained musically driven till the end. As he said in 1966, months prior to his death, 'There is never any end… there are always new sounds to imagine, new feelings to get at. And always there is the need to keep purifying these feelings and sounds so that we can really see what we’ve discovered in its pure state. So that we can see more and more clearly what we are… we have to keep on cleaning the mirror.'” Books about Coltrane and his work are by Lewis Porter, ed., Lewis Porter, David N. Baker, Leonard Lewis Brown, Ben Ratliff, and Eric Nisenson. Here is a link to his releases, his playlists, a documentary film, an interview, some videos, a live set from 1960, and an audio recording called “The Making of A Love Supreme”. Substantial parts of his work have been compiled on “Coltrane ’58: The Prestige Recordings” (358’), “The Heavyweight Champion: The Complete Atlantic Recordings” (1995) (476’) and “The Complete 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings” (266’).
Woody Shaw was a jazz trumpeter who drove forward relentlessly in his playing. “Often described as the instrument's last great innovator, Shaw was a virtuoso who restructured the way trumpet players move between long intervals, and wrote his own harmonic and melodic language using notes outside the chords (a technique known as ‘side-slipping’).” Horace Silver said of him: “Woody Shaw is full of beautiful fire, drive, imagination, and harmonic knowledge.” He did not play at ultra-high volume or in high-pitch stratospheres as Maynard Ferguson did, but he never let up on the gas. Here links to his playlists, a live 1979 performance, and a live 1985 performance.
Saxophonist George Adams was a champion of hard-driving, straight-ahead jazz. Here is a link to George Adams – Don Pullen Quartet live at the Subway (1986) (53’). Here is a link to his playlists.
Albums:
- Peter Brötzmann, “PICA PICA” (42’) “is an all-star affair featuring the trio of Peter Brötzmann (reeds), Albert Mangelsdorff (trombone) and Gunter Sommer (drums), originally recorded in 1982 at Jazzfest Unna in Germany.”
- Noah Haidu, “Infinite Distances” (2017) (59’): “Drive and depth inform this meaty album by Noah Haidu, the assertive pianist and innovative composer leading its 11 sizzling tracks. Inspired by a conversation with Branford Marsalis about Rainer Maria Rilke, Haidu wrote 10 of these tunes, six of which form a suite based on the German poet’s provocative dictum: 'Among the closest people there remain infinite distances.'”
- Tom Harrell, “Infinity” (2019) (66’) “brims with uncomplicated structures, harmonic sophistication, nervy improvisations, and a mix of kaleidoscopic hard-bop and straight ahead post-bop influences.”
- Aaron Seeber, “First Move” (2022) (60’) is an album of hard-driving, straight-ahead jazz.
Music: songs and other short pieces
- Taylor Swift, "Shake It Off" (lyrics)
- Eminem, "Till I Collapse" (lyrics)