Motivation to Wade into Cold Water

Motivation

Today I’m re-visiting motivation. When I explored motivation in April, I talked about it as a force toward pleasure and away from pain. Motivation came up again when I explored need and talked about Maslow’s pyramid. Today I looked up some definitions and found that motivation is a force that imparts motion as if from a store. In other words, I’ve got a whole bunch of motion stored up somewhere and the force “motivation” will dole it out to me. But what is this force, and how do I trigger it at will? I think my definition still needs work.

The sun was out this morning, so I took my net-lights outside for the first time. I am definitely motivated by the surprise of trying something new.

dVerse Poets Pub

For today’s poetics prompt, Merril invites us to think about summer with an ekphrastic prompt. I wrote to the image by Edward Henry Potthast, Summer Day, Brighton Beach which shows children wading into the ocean. I waded a bit into the lake this morning, wasn’t quite motivated to swim.

The Poem

Wading In

Hear them shrieking in the distance
oh, they must be having fun
the waves crashing against them splashing
oh, I can’t wait now let’s run

But it’s freezing, my feet are tingling
oh, this bite has just begun
up it’s reaching, and soon numbing
then forgotten in summer sun.