Alberto Giacometti in his studio ca. 1960
Basically, I no longer work for anything but the sensation I have while working.
-Alberto Giacometti
That sounds about right.
I am in the midst of prepping work for my upcoming June 4 show at the Principle Gallery. Prepping consists of framing and matting and staining and sanding and varnishing and this and that and so on. All important in presenting the work but none of it is actually the painting that I call my work.
And I am severely missing that work in these last couple of weeks as I have had to put down the brush to finish off the show. The months leading up to this point were the most intense period of work that I have had in several years. My productivity has waned a bit in recent years and this show, after a year that was memorably awful for us all, demanded a new commitment to the work.
And I believe that I found it.
I locked myself in basically over the past several months and just worked. It was in recent weeks, as I approached this point where I would have to stop painting for a while to prep the show, that a realization came to me. I saw clearly that how important that sensation I had while working, as Giacometti puts it, was to me, how it drove everything in me and unlocks so many things there.
I need that sensation. It is a self-generating source of energy and the path to that place where I am at my best, where I have an opportunity to be more and expand my understanding of this existence.
This realization required a deepening of my commitment to my work. I want and need to delve deeper and the work is the only way to get there.
Just felt that needed to be said aloud, even if only for myself to hear. Now, I have to get back to prepping so that I can truly get back to that work.
Redtree Times 
Work as “a self-generating source of energy” is something many don’t understand at any level. When my obsessively concerned mother asked her doctor (in my presence) how long I could keep working on boats, the good doctor replied, “As long as she keeps doing it, she’ll be able to keep doing it.”
I love that your mother asked her doctor about you as well as his answer. He’s right, of course. And you’re right about many not understanding work as a source of energy. Most only think of work as toil with all its debilitating effects. The work we’re talking about is another animal altogether.