motivation decreasing as I age

I agree with /u/zworkaccount. You need confidence that you have the skills to make and maintain a conversation; that motivation comes with experience, practice, and habit formation. But I think part of that lack of motivation, for me, is my pre-determined beliefs that I will form no meaningful or lasting connections with people. Small-talk is especially cheap, if that's all you can ever sustain, if that's all there ever is. You need the room to grow, develop, build trust and lasting rapport. So I also think part of lacking that motivation is believing that your efforts will not ultimately prove meaningful. I suppose what I was saying before, is that if you're at odds with people, you're at odds with life. This seems somehow cheap and wrong at first sight. Surely people do not make the cornerstone of a life worth living. Surely you could appreciate a life without them. Maybe there is some Zen philosophy where that's true. And perhaps I overvalue social connectivity, because I've never really had it. Beyond the realms of philosophy, though, the practical reality is that people are central to the lifeblood of civilization and mostly everything we do and hope to do. But at the heart of the matter is probably a deeper psychological truth, and that is, we yearn for people because it's in our nature to do so. In that sense, the motivation to connect with people must deep down always be a resource available to us, so long as we overcome some of the obstacles that prevent us, that cause us to disbelieve - that ultimately, prevent us from being happy.

/r/AvPD Thread