On Motivation
By Logan Yuhas, Wisteria Magazine
I don’t want to do things. I mean I like doing things, in fact there are many things I love doing, but that elemental pull to act, to make, is missing. The ideas are there, but the effort part is left lightly throbbing, an unhealed hole. A motor missing. That struggle, that vacancy, makes me feel like so many others; that maybe I was put on Earth just to hang out.
Despite how attractive just vibing seems, the space where the internal engine is missing, the hole, feels guilty. There is so much work that needs to be done. Should be done. That I should do. From the size of a marble to a planet, responsibility inevitably falls on my shoulders, whether it “should” or not.
I used to think it struck you like a pill, red or blue or otherwise. Some small orange tesla you could put on your tongue to temporarily fabricate an ersatz determination and let you get your shit done. An “aha” moment. But imaginary (or frankly real, unless prescribed) narcotics can’t help in the long run. Who is giving them to you?
In a lot of media, it seems that way. All these “great” creatives have an epiphany that sets them on their journey to becoming rich and famous, a goal that looks for me, like financial security and a robust enough social life. Even in my favorite show, Michaela Coel’s “I May Destroy You” (if you’re going to watch, TW: r^pe), the main character gets a eureka moment about her book. She’s portrayed as frantic, determined, and inspired, finishing years of work in what for her is hours, and us is seconds. But I’ve never had that, and I have my doubts that a lot of people have either.
What I have had though, is responsibilities. Deadlines, pressure, musts. And too often those burdens leak into my own brain; I had put myself in a perfectionistic shame ritual before I realized I did.
I find solace knowing our collective unconscious is full of connections. Play six degrees of separation and you’ll go somewhere you weren’t thinking of. When the stress of school, work, debt, friends, family, expectations (societal or self-inflicted) presses any juice left in your motor - or cavity - out, laying you down in the soft cushions of the ill-favored laziness, it can feel like there’s no way out. At the very least, I’m doing the best I think I can when I'm in that state.
Life in America is a treadmill. I’m sure many of you need no explanation, but I’ll give one anyway: The capitalist boogeyman in his Ralph Lauren suit and tie threatens you at one end and the promise of the illusive dream job at the other keeps most of us sweating and panting but going relatively nowhere for the majority of our lives. To make it worse, the speed and height of your track is largely determined by one’s parents, unless they can make it to the control panel to change it, with some having the extravagant grace to make it off the running belt. It’s John Calvin’s wet dream.
The system fucking sucks. And that’s coming from a boy who, for context, has the fortune of a more-than-decent privilege with my treadmill. That I get to sit and write about my feelings in my ivory house feels ridiculous. Who chose me, someone who squanders so much, and not someone who deserves it? I know I just revealed myself as a panderer, but I hope I can still add a little bit of communion.
I’m thinking so much about this because I know, in just a handful of years, I’ll have to make it on my own, un-electrified, in this strange little alleyway of the multiverse where a socio-economic hierarchy fates so much of our lives. I ache with that knowledge, for myself, but even more so for others. And wherever you are, I bet it hurts too.
I know we, I, have to change how that is and I know that it’s impossible that we, I, can change the course of almost 8 billion people in our lifetimes. So how to cope?
My therapist gave me a sheet of paper that says “ACT first, motivation will then follow”. It’s simple, it’s succinct, it’s become my mantra. It gets me out of bed, not just to do my daily grind as a high school senior, but also giving me a motor and keeping me out of the reach of ‘the man’ we’re sticking it to, and still having energy to do things just for me. I’m sure it won’t work for everyone, but I want to share.
At this point, surviving life is goal one, goal two being creating something(s). Even if I think those creations are bad. Or it won’t make money. And I know that’s a luxury I get to have - free time - but in having that privilege I don’t want to let it go frivolously, doing nothing, nor do I want to dissolve it and let post-internet capitalism’s obsession with productivity take over. I can help others’ gardens and have my own to ward. I can make peace and have peace. With or without motivation.
