Asking what is the point of doing research is like asking what is the point of having sex. The activity itself is the point. If you need extra motivation to engage in it, something is wrong.
For research scholars, doing research is the goal and everything else they do is subservient to it. They teach and carry out service obligations because these activities allow them to do research. They don’t carve out time every day to do research. Instead, they carve out time from research to do other things.
I only recently became a real research scholar of the kind I’m describing here, and the feeling is amazing.
Clarissa's Blog 
I was like that in college and graduate school, and everyone was like that, students and faculty, but when I became a professor myself I was told it was arrogant, which was a sin, and nobody else was like this, they were all suffering with the research “burden.” That was why I decided I was not cut out for academia.
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Many of the professors I know speak of the teaching “burden.” For, of course, their real purpose in life is research.
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I like the sex-research analogy a lot. But the question is, does that mean that the only thing worse than bad research is no research at all?
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Do people say that about sex?
Jesus.
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Well, I think that guys say that about sex. Women (from my experience) are more discerning…
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I just asked my husband and he confirmed that you are right. There is such a school of thought among men. Hmmm. . .
I need to think about this.
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