Motivation

What is the real source of motivation? What actually motivates us to do anything at all? On the most basic level, it's rather easy to see what motivates us to take any action. Survival instincts alone prompt us to feed, drink and seek shelter, for instance. If something attacks us, we might even be prompted to defend ourselves. What about everything else, then? What about everything else that doesn't fall under the survival/basic category?

Others.

It seems that everything else is intrinsically linked to other people when it comes to the motivation to do anything outside survival. But there was a time when I couldn't even follow the most basic survival instincts, and during that time when I was letting my own self go there was nothing anyone could have said to me that would have made a difference. I only got better when something within me decided that it wanted to. In other words, I started taking care of my own survival because I wanted to.

I seem to have recovered the inner motivation to live, but when it comes to motivation in the world, I have none. Solitude and isolation can do that to you, I suppose, and again it hints at the fact that without other people in the background it's very easy to be rendered unmotivated to do anything in particular.

Or perhaps I have no passion left whatsoever. Perhaps seeing the world for what it is in the cold light of reality not only killed my idealism but also whatever fire I had within. It's not that my imagination and dreams are dead as such, it's just that I no longer even see the point in being motivated by them.

I feel as though I'm immersed in some kind of limbo in time. Even though time goes on and I grow older with every day that passes by, I feel frozen in place at the same time.

I understand better now that the main goals in this life are about making money and do whatever we like with it. Most people will spend that money on creating a certain lifestyle in which they'll fill their time with hobbies, travels, or 'fun' of all sorts. Most of them will do that focused on a central theme: family. They'll leave one nest to create another, and in-between doing that fun and hobbies will fill the voids. I know deep down it will never be what I was always seeking.

You know something is wrong with you when even your own mother starts asking about your 'writing'. You know it must be quite bad when she tells you she worries you'll never finish what you started writing and that you should really get back into it, even if it means leaving your 'real' job behind for a while.

I'm not sure when exactly she started changing her tune with me. She used to see my writing as a hobby, something I liked doing in my spare time, and whenever I would tell her I wished I could focus on it completely, she would remind me that I wasn't being realistic. In many ways I thought she was right, of course. Who's going to feed and shelter a struggling writer lost in her own universe?

I think her view changed after a chance encounter with an old writer a couple of years ago. She befriended his wife and had a glimpse of their lifestyle, their home, but most importantly she saw his office full of random books, research, the sheer amount of a mess all around...  They worked as a team. He had been struggling for the most part of his life, but she had been there to support him because she loved him, but most importantly because she believed in him; and now they were both equally supporting each other... My mother then said to me seeing his office and the way he worked reminded her of me when I was immersed in writing. She said she hadn't realised I was really doing something all the 'real' writers were doing. I saw something like vague regret in her eyes when she said that, as though she'd always seen all I'd been doing as a mere plaything. She'd never taken it seriously.

And now... now that I feel so empty and unmotivated to do anything... now she tells me: "Why aren't you writing?"

I'm making excuses, of course. I'm not sure why I can't write anything much these days. The stories are still inside my head, alive and vibrant, but my hands just won't type the words.

I remember taking a break from writing a particular story I'd spent two years working on right before my finals at university because I needed to focus on cramming my head with all the information needed to pass the exams. I remember thinking at the time that it would only be for a couple of months... that it would be a useful break to see if I still felt like writing the story afterwards. But then, just as I was about to resume the writing unexpected diversions occurred that distracted me so much I didn't even realise a year had passed. And then the more time went by, the more difficult it felt to go back to the story.

I wish I could make myself be like most people who write out there - they can just take a notebook, sit at a café and write. Sometimes they get stuck so they go away to a beautiful place to find inspiration again.

None of these tricks work with me. I can only ever write when there is a particular balance inside my head - when I can reach a state of almost perfect calm within. That means no stress, no pressure, no expectations (especially my own). But my daily life has been filled with exactly those for the last 2 years, meaning that I have found it most impossible to slip back into that needed state of almost perfect calm that allows me to open that door within from where the writing can flow. It wouldn't matter that I had a couple of days in the middle of nowhere, because I would know that it was only for a couple of days, and that knowledge would keep the anxiety alive.

But again, I'm making excuses. I know what is really holding me back. I have to make a choice. And it isn't  a choice based on external factors. It's about embracing who you are and accepting that many things 'of the world' will never be a part of it. So long as I remain dithering on the threshold, torn between my own self  and the pull of so many external 'temptations' I will remain feeling as though I'm stuck in a limbo.