Fall, foliage, and intrinsic motivation

I went outside for a few minutes and have something to report: The dark-skinned trees along the 20th Street are desperately beautiful; their outrageous arrangements of orange and gold can make one instantly drunk. Brunet pine trees stoically ignore the season, but that is just who they are. Breezy Colorado sun delicately touches pedestrians’ eyelids; the pedestrians are a bit shy, but look so pleased. And the smells, the smells sneak deep into my unconsciousness, bringing back random emotions, images, and sensations from the past that may or may not happen.

Now, how do I motivate myself to write an annual program report; a task I was putting off even without the intrusive competition of autumn? How does one justify doing something profoundly boring in the face of such overwhelming beauty? Thoroughly corrupted by years of philosophical thinking, I am turning the very specific question into a more abstract tone: what moves us to do things we don’t enjoys doing, and can probably get away with avoiding altogether?
Most of my motivation comes from explicit and implicit promises to other people; those I learned to like and respect. I suspect it is the same for most others: we do things that just need to be done in an effort to preserve relationships with other individuals, for whom those things are, for some reason, important. Promises move the world. Where direct administrative coercion fails (which is true everywhere except prisons, armies, mental hospitals, and totalitarian regimes), and where internal motivators are absent, it is the power of human relationships that gets things done. I’ll do the report; it will not be that good, and it definitely encroaches on my ability to enjoy Colorado fall. I do it for the teacher, so to speak.
We make a big mistake trying to pretend that school kids should have some internal motivation for learning. That is such an unfair assumption, and it helps no one. They should do boring things for their parents, teachers, friends, and other people they care about. Is it intrinsic or extrinsic motivation? Those psychologist that believe those two are different just completely miss the point of motivation. It can never be either one or the other. The distinction does not hold water. The interplay of duty and pleasure is much more complex. Ultimately, the two are always connected.
Enough of feet-dragging; back to the report.