My next-door neighbour retired shortly before the pandemic shut down the country & restricted travel out of it. Now that it is opening up he feels unmotivated to do anything. Without his work he isn’t finding a sense of purpose – even with a dog, a wife, a garden – he finds it hard to even get up in the morning to do anything. Without stress he apparently feels shapeless & directionless.
I empathized but didn’t have any advice for him – I doubt if what motivates me would appeal to him & even I something feel like I’m going through the motions as opposed to do things that that fulfill me – I do know that even those motions will ripple out in positive ways. But it did make me think about my sense of purpose.
I have another friend, between contract, lost track of what day it was 🙂 Without the routine of a job to deal with time slipped away, even working from home didn’t help & more than once he found himself checking the actual date & day of the week before entering that info on his daily reports. To be honest some times I do consult my cell phone to confirm the date of the day of the week 🙂
I’m no longer a goal driven person – I do have objectives like finishing that chapter edit, write that poem etc – those are enough for me. Getting published was a prime motivator for me at one time – you know hitting it Big like Stephen King or J. K. Rowling – but getting to know some ‘major’ minor writers I found out the emotional & creative cost for even their level of accomplishment was something I didn’t want to pay.
The things that motivate me are pretty simple, with blogging being near the top of the list. Creating new posts, taking pictures keep me focused; zoom increased the quantity of recovery meetings I could attend – I enjoy f2f meeting but, you know, zoom means I’m there in less than a minute – as opposed to taking an hour or more to get there & another to get home 🙂 Yes, lazy is me 🙂
What motivates me to write? I’ve been asked that more than a few times. My response is usually something like ‘What motivates you to breathe?’
Enough Is Foolishness
let me make one thing
perfectly clear
I don’t know
what I’m looking for
never did
when I find what I think
might be what I’m looking for
it turns out to be
something I never really wanted
in the first place
something that TV said
was the right thing to have
<>
& so I did what I had to to get it
when I had it
my sense of satisfaction
didn’t match that of the people
in the commercial
didn’t come with bright lights
or cheery music
only a distracted clerk
handing it to me
with half a smile
looking for the next unhappy customer
<>
I’ve never really known
what it is I truly want
there isn’t enough statistical evidence
no algorithm
to tell me what it might be
new shoes
the right cellphone
a room full of slightly tipsy friends
watching TV in some cozy bar
<>
I grind myself at work
to keep up the payments
on all the things
that fill the time space continuum
with sparky energy
things that make me wonder
what better things
am I going to find tomorrow
content that clogs up
the arteries of the planet
stuff to be tossed aside
when brighter sparks are offered
when tastier juicier
mineral enhanced sludge is
funnelled into my gaping
yawning mouth
seeking the more more more
to burst my gut
to glut my need for enough
<>
enough
a word I dare not use in pubic
to say I’ve had enough
a surrender to the hopelessness
of every having what I want
I have to want something
if I don’t have need
I might as well vanish
jump into the clogged up arteries
to be absorbed by the sludge
<>
I don’t know
what I’m looking for
but I do know
I want to be free of want
sweet, eh? paypal.me/TOpoet
TOpoet 