My wife is three more 5 week classes away from her business degree, and most of the courses were boring, like the corporate laws and loopholes for mergers, but there were a couple of psych classes - critical thinking was the first, and now "motivation". <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

 

The motivation book was kinda boring for what I was thinking the topic could be; turns out what I was thinking was "inspiration", not motivation per se, in fact after a few chapters it seemed like not only did they have no idea why we do what we do, but they had no idea on how to get us to think otherwise. Oh they did, they had methods to get the majority to come on along,  but I take myself as an example, and I know others like myself, and as a way to get someone like me under some kind of control, they've got nothin, no way to motivate me if I don't want to be motivated to do something. And I realized, besides the fact that I am interested in finding as well as providing inspiration, I think motivation is wrong, trying to get people to do things they don't want to do, either by strong arming them, or as this book suggests, sitting down to listen to them on why they don't want to do it. But none of that gets the kids to do their dishes. And with me, they always say I "enjoy my delusions way too much", and in school, they knew I could do better but always only managed a "C", (if I got an A on one test I'd skip the next and take the F, as it all washed out to a C, and what possible motivation could there be for doing better, I always thought, and twenty five years later, I'm motivated to get a business going, and find a musician friend my own age still refusing to put in that kind of effort.

 

He says he was influenced by the Aesop's fable where the grasshopper acted out that way and always got away with it. Myself, I had a roman catholic jesuit priest reading me the bible and the dead sea scrolls, and my favorite characters were jesus and satan, the magical guys doing summersaults all over the regular people, as far as I could tell from those early dramatic readings I got as the first born son. And my dad gave me well thought out essays, with why what I did was considered wrong, why they were concerned, what some other options would be, etc. I don't remember if that ever helped, but I did appreciate it more than the frantic screaming from the madwoman who was my mom.

 

So I learned a few things in the motivation book, like how giving rewards actually decreases motivation, cause now they're only doing it for rewards, and I see this in capitalism all the time, everybody sitting around not working, because nobody will pay, not  because they can't do the work. What an obstacle, it always seems, this "capitalism" and "property ownership" this particular species has come up with.

 

They suggested rewards like money, but I've subverted that one completely, walking into any job saying I won't discuss and don't care about money, just keep the food and shelter comin. And when I was first called insane, as a little kid, my parents were trying some basic "don't you want it?" kind of "motivation, to get me to do something I was refusing to do. And I replied "of course I want it, but I don't want myself to want it, so there's nothing you can do". And they said I was insane, but decades later I was vindicated when I saw that type of idea in various religious stories. And they also made me realize that "insane" wasn't crazy at all, but something that nobody on the outside understands.

 

Recently a guy I do mentoring for asked another friend what "charlie's motivation" was, then they decided there wasn't any. Kind of. There's "wu-wei", an important taoist concept that means "not for the purpose of something". But I get something out of mentoring, it just isn't capitalist type motivation.  All my life I find wu wei hard to pull off. A week ago I walked several miles to starbucks and back with an empty water bottle in hand. My favorite air. Practicing irrationality, or, wu-wei? Hard to tell. But it's wanting to be not understood, irrationalism is. A line from "vision of disorder" - yes very old metal but it's what I grew up on - "psychoanalytical ways will never ever succeed to find a way into our brains and motives, now, our thoughts are invaded, our lives rejected, and we have fought for conformity???". Jut to make sure nobody can figure out my motivation and use it against me, the purpose of mystery.

 

Oh to a large extent the study of motivation is just the study of health, hale humans feeling strong and confident, willfull, and so full of motivation for whatever. I drink oolong tea,and go out on whims that look like insanity,  like meth it helps subvert all motivation by stealing it out for ourselves, super energetic and we can point it in any direction we want, (or want ourselves to want) to.

 

Come to think of it that's how we religious leaders produce inspiration, its magic, we want ourselves to be magic, and there it goes!. And we religious leaders get this passed down on the genome, father to son priest to priest, shaman to shaman.

 

Of course there's the motivation to be different, to drive on the other side of the road, or use ice in our drinks in america, there's that of course. fear is a big motivator of course, before you get out to the "want yourself to want" level, where there is no fear of death and so we can go off and be shamans.

 

A hair dresser lady once told me, outside the scope of science, that the stronger sperm makes the more motivated babies. What about the mountain lions, in the movie mt Kilimanjaro, the big cats found way above the frost line, in the snow. What was the motivation, the movie left us asking, curiosity? Really did kill the cat!

 

Think of why people exercise, why they go all elaborate on vacations, and that's where you'll find motivation. But nothing to change it in others against their will. All we can do is inspire others, leave them to do what they want to with it. We can offer a plan or map, and that's what they are looking for, not "motivation".

 

 

But the one think I kept thinking about on motivation, is the story "the wolves in the walls". There are wolves in the walls, and they finally come out and the people flee. And then... the wolves dressup like the people, and pantomime how the people lived, in wild wild overly motivated behavior that the original people never had. What was THAT? It's celebrating victory over a different species that you don't respect, and moving in to the newly won territory. Happens in old war movies.

 

Competition, with other people, another motivator. Like the stars, they call it a feedback mechanism that cuts off growth at about the same point on all stars in the cluster. That's star motivation. And why does the star go alight in the first place? a big motivation for people too: pressure. The pressure all around that people mistakenly call "gravity" and they think it's in the ground, but the stars know better.

 

Jesus, Buddha, they all inspired, not motivated slaves in labor. I got mine from hegel, the philosophy of right, to be free and strong and ethical, the cult of ethical life. It was a great book, spent years with it.

 

Planning, setting goals, saying prayers in the morning as this goes on; and if there's too much incongruousness, like a sudden broken angle or sudden lottery winning, as good and bad surprises cost huge amounts of mental energy to remap reality - the goals to something more appropriate for the new situation. Others try to set t

their standard - just as easy to marry and fall in love with a rich man as a poor one. Or "never gonna get me no trade, aint gonna be like papa, workin for the boss every night and day".Then age messes with these goals, reality sets in. irrationality helps it keep taking off into the mystery and wonder of a new day, new chance.

 

There's monkey see monkey do monkey believe, monkey act crazy. When Lance Armstrong bikes the tour de france and makes the front page of all the nyc newspapers, it "inspires" me, and I bike harder and sweat more. And that's what hegel taught me, that our "universal" action is the property of all, "das tun aller und jeder", the doings of all and each. We act for eachother.

 

Buddha said "look around you; except for action for the purpose of sacrifice, all men are constrained to action. Therefor, act "not for the sake of something", or "for no reason"."

 

A shaman once told me all creatures are energy, and all energy just wants to go home. ET phone home. But no.

 

Because there are parasites and mites in our world and in our minds, making us eat junk and have sex and think stupid games all day. Motivated by mites into madness. So eat garlic, get the mites out, and go act not for the purpose of something.