Motivation

My motivations are simple. I want peace. My actions will typically stem from a quest for peace. Unfortunately, peace is elusive. So I'm not entirely certain how to act, and my behavior is modified frequently.

It appears peace(or happiness) would come from fulfilling desire.

Even better than fulfilling desire is eliminating desire, so it would seem. This lack of peace, obsession and bitterness I have, all come from a seemingly futile chase of desires I cannot fulfill. So wouldn't it be better if I didn't have these desires at all? If they aren't going to be fulfilled, why are they there? Why am I wasting my time? Isn't it better to be doing something else?

Being a logical sort of being, that would appear to be the answer, it is the quest for enlightenment. Unfortunately, I dream the impossible dream. It's a catch-22. My desire is to eliminate desire.

Truthfully, that's not what I want. I'd much rather fulfill desire. But what I seek is just as evasive as being a Buddhist. I seek value. I want my life to be meaningful, yet I cannot name one meaningful accomplishment. Even if I see a task as meaningful, I will ascribe to it no value once I have accomplished it(this is why my college diploma lives in a tube). Furthermore, even if I give something value, I reason someone else would have done it anyway.

This post is pretty meaningless. I just tend to run in endless circles in my mind. Yet, there is something therapeutic about writing it out.

Motivation is always selfish. Even if I'm doing something to help others, I am doing it to feel good about myself. I don't seem to genuinely ever just want to help someone else. I do, however, genuinely not want to see others go through pain. So in that case, I suppose it is possible for me to help them avoid crisis simply for the sake of helping them.

I'm guessing there is something to the hierarchy of needs. If my motivation is to find food in order to stay alive today, I am probably not thinking about these spiritual and emotional needs for value and satisfaction. In a sense, I am almost jealous of those in far worse circumstances, because they get to deal with something else.

At the very least, they live with achievable goals. A hungry man can accomplish his goal of finding food. I cannot accomplish my goal of finding value.

This quest for value runs so deep that I question if I'd even be satisfied if I were the most important man on earth. Nevertheless, that's the goal - to be important.

This goal, impossible to achieve, seems a little arrogant, self centered and entirely opposite of what I should want to be.

Where does it come from, and why won't it go away?

It's easy to blame my father for this lack of worth, but its my responsibility to overcome this disfunction, is it not? I've got the ability to see the problem, but not the ability to change it. T'is a wee bit frustrating.

It's very possible I am approaching the issue at the wrong level. Perhaps, their exists something before motivation that needs to be corrected, and I cannot even conceptualize it. It's humbling, to say the least. Frustrating, to state the obvious.

I continue to pick away at my mind, trying to find a atmosphere in which my memory survives. In the end, it's simply an attempt to make sense of life. Something I am almost certainly incapable of doing, thanks to my vastly inferior knowledge.

I guess I should just trust I'm walking the right path. My inability to do that is a whole other issue.

At the door

Here's an old journal entry I find entertaining.

Many years ago I prayed my future wife would show up at my door. I think a guy name mark darling inspired that request. I remember when I used to believe these things would actually happen. But then I've had so many requests and desires. They disappear as new events come along that don't line up with those prayers. New events create new "destinies" in my head as I try to believe I know what's happening. I always end up being wrong.

Funny that I stumbled across that request in my journal today, because I want to talk about a girl, and it turns out she showed up at my door a couple weeks ago.

In the past I'd rationalize that she is the "one" and I'd proceed to get all flipped out. The flipping would occur as soon as things stopped going according to plan. This usually started a few minutes into the relationship.

Now that I spit in the face of destiny, I really don't care where she came from or what anything means. I'm just happy I met her and that somebody actually interests me.

Having talked to her for an entire 6 hours now, I'm amazed at my already skewed mental state. Emotions, it seems, are powerful animals. They practically force me to chase after her, convincing me all things otherwise are meaningless. They make my spirits soar, causing the simple things, like breathing, to be quite enjoyable. They also blind my judgement to a point where she could go on a shooting spree in a shopping mall and I would see it as a spiritual discipline of an upright and godly woman.

What is it about intimacy that would make a man trade the whole world to have it?

I guess it's all were supposed to have. That's why God asks us to trade the whole world for him. We are really good at looking in the wrong places with the wrong methods. But I guess we'd try anything to get it.

I'm almost willing to trade the whole world to see what happens.