How do you perceive Inspiration?

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I've had difficulty with this part. Usually when I see read biographies of people with Aspergers achieving something good in their life, such as a good job or even designing their own room to match their mood, I never feel inspired. On the contrary, it makes me feel even more out of place and strangely sad to find people with Aspergers managing tasks even I would find difficult.

So, I'd like to know, how do you manage to feel motivated or inspired to do something?

Without knowing you it is only possible to give an answer in general terms or relate our own experince. I can get inspired an just wonder where it all comes from. I can write a story and see the character's body language in my mind's eye. What I am not good at is doing two creative activities at the same time. If I want to paint then I have to lay the writing to one side completely.

The first and obvious thing to do is know the things you are naturally good at. I was not allowed to go to an art school and didn't care to think of myself that way until much later on in life. The next obvious thing is to find out what you really want to do with your life. It is not clear to me if you tend to be obsessive over one thing. It is said to be and Asperger's trait. We are very often rightly accused of being lost in our own world. This can be turned to good use if we can control those thoughts.

Cocaine?

No, seriously I never tried that way and wouldn't want to. I used to feel very inspired when I was young, and would put tons of energy into ambitious projects. But I think life taught me not to do that so much. So these days I don't feel inspiration much at all, or at least not much enthusiasm. I don't believe claims that I can transform my life if I work really hard or do X instead of Y. I'm always open to looking at cunning plans that might really change things dramatically for the better, but I have little hope of finding anything viable.

As far as I can tell, progress in life is more about small, gradual steps, and I think people don't often rise very far above their basic nature. So I don't really entertain graindiose dreams........people with too many visions need to go see a shrink, in my view. Small is beautiful. I've got a perfect right to live and die without improving myself one jot, if I'm happy as I am. I'm more about solving the problems I happen to bump into than creating a utopian rebirth.

But the inspirations I do get are quite nice, even if they're not Earth-shattering. There's all these horrible calculations and collations that my boss makes me do every week, which annoys me because it's so uncomfortable doing it, and because it's so easy to make a mistake. So I was inspired to write a computer program that does all the tedious work itself. That gets me out of a painful hour of tedium every week, and every time I use it, I feel proud of the achievement. It wasn't a trivial task writing it.

The things that inspire me are realistic ideas that might make my life more comfortable....sometimes I think the only reason I feel depressed is that there's nothing immediately apparent that I can do, that is worth the investment. There are so many things that would just lock me into committing myself for a very poor likely return. Though some say it can be the other way round - if I'm feeling confident and positive, I'll see opportunities that I won't notice if I'm depressed.

Reading other people's successes never inspires me. They're not me.

Furthermore, a lot of disability advocates challenge the underlying ideas behind the 'inspirational disabled person' stereotype. There's a dark side to that, in that it puts the spotlight on how 'inspiring' the disabled person is instead of the barriers they face and the expectations people have. Many times disabled people are called inspirational for doing things that would be no big deal if a non-disabled person did them. Other times they're considered inspirational for rising above challenges that a just society wouldn't have presented them with in the first place. Even at it's best, the inspirational disabled stereotype has a 'Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer' quality to it, hinting that if you don't do something special to overcome your disability, it's fine for the other reindeer to pick on you and exclude you.

A good analysis at the start of this post (the rest is good too):

http://chaoticidealism.livejournal.com/91513.html

Incidentally, when you mentioned inspired, I thought you were talking about creative inspiration, a common and very fun experience for me. When things suddenly 'click' together and I have a great idea - it could be a story to write, a study I want to do, something for a video game, a blog entry, whatever - it's the most wonderful feeling. I have never been able to 'make' it happen, though. I just have to let it come when it will, and make sure I use the inspiration while it's there. (This is why I carry pads of paper everywhere with me.)