I was massively inspired by this essay, specifically:

The most fundamental freedom is the freedom to do nothing. But when you get this freedom, after many years of activities that were forced, nothing is all you want to do. You might start projects that seem like the kind of thing you're supposed to love doing, music or writing or art, and not finish because nobody is forcing you to finish and it's not really what you want to do. It could take months, if you're lucky, or more likely years, before you can build up the life inside you to an intensity where it can drive projects that you actually enjoy and finish, and then it will take more time before you build up enough skill that other people recognize your actions as valuable.

It sort of reminds me of how succession works in forests -- the operative part of concept being incredibly vast amounts of time.

Basically, I bought into a folk wisdom about motivation that is very, very difficult to falsify. One thing I've learned for sure: being alone most of the time may have been important in the beginning, but now it's only a liability.