Motivation

I have a long-standing issue with motivation in my life. There's very little (outside of food and shelter) that pushes on my very hard.

Most of my life efforts have generally been motivated by avoidance of discomfort, not seeking something for its own worth to me.

Otherwise I've done things in service of the needs, desires, demands of others (or, at least, what I perceived those to be).

In my early life, the Other that I served this way was my mother. As I became an adult, I started to focus on whoever I was intimate with.

This ties into my earlier posting regarding Futility. I don't think of myself (and in particular, my needs and desires) to have any real worth; everyone else comes first (even my dogs). As a result I don't find much enduring motivational value in my personal needs/desires. It all seems pretty much pointless.

I long for something that matters enough to me to get out of bed for (other than going to work to earn enough to put food on the table and a roof over my head).

On recurring theme in these feelings is the imperative that anything I do be "productive" (something I think I picked up from my mom).

I really can't do anything for its own sake or purely for enjoyment without feeling like I'm slacking. Reading for pleasure, at least in certain contexts (bedtime mostly), feels exempt from this.

This means that most of my preferred leisure activities come with a burden of guilt and shame over not doing other things that I "ought" to be doing (housework, yard work, repairs, remodeling, or anything that will earn well-defined, more or less immediate monetary benefits).

It's a "business before pleasure" imperative (which feels like my Grandpa, my mom's father). The problem is that "business" in this context is basically never-ending, there's always something else practical, "productive" that I could be doing; so there's little room for genuine pleasure.

It feels like anything I find enjoyable is at least slightly tainted.

I think this is at least part of why I struggle to get a head of steam going about my writing. There's a part of  me that shames me that it's a waste of time.

Realizations

I've had a couple of revelations over the last few days.

The First I'm recognizing right now (not for the first time really) is that I need to write down my revelations pretty damn quick or I'll forget them.

The Second I came across last week, having to do with how I don't finish things or generally allow myself to get too deeply involved in anything.

School and work are exceptions to that, they trump that impulse (though I did go through some periods where school took a back seat)

The Third I came upon this morning while driving to work. I had a whole train of thought I wanted to blog about and now I can't recall what it was. God, I hate that.

Perhaps it will come back to me as I write.

Later...

It did come back to me. It was about reason and spirituality. I was asking myself whether I think (believe?) there's something bigger than reason and logic.

Clearly there are things other than that; but I ask myself whether there's something that encompasses them, but goes beyond. How would I know what that is? How do I trust it if it's not amenable to the intellectual tools I have?