Motivation

Today we had a very special guest post by Jacob M. Appel about prioritizing writing. If you haven’t read it yet, I recommend reading it for a dose of writing motivation.

It is human nature to be drawn to pleasure and avoid pain. All motivations can be put into these two categories, but some find pleasure in pain, and some are repulsed by pleasures. Motives for people’s actions are endlessly entertaining as is evident from the number of mysteries and thrillers available to stream. With every violent act, the most interesting question is why, what was the motivation?

What motivates you? What provides a cause or reason to act? It’s different for everyone, so what does motivation look like? It pulls and pushes; like a force, it changes one’s direction.

For today’s images, I searched for a symbol that represents both pleasure and pain. I decided fire was the perfect fit. Fire is beautiful, exciting and draws you toward it for warmth, but it burns and can cause great pain. I added orange and blue strings of lights in the mirrorworld, used my fire symbol filter, and put it in motion.

The Prompts

NaPoWriMo

Today’s prompt is to write a poem about something you have absolutely no interest in.

Poem A Day

Today’s prompt is to write a patience poem.

The Poem

No Patience for the Idolotry of Reality’s Celebrity

Living vicariously through imagery
false luxury, fake enmity, wasted
hours watching, watching, staring
not caring, not having to care
and yet wrapped up in voyaristic
connection, anticipation of one
more juicy bit of depravity
From where the motivation
to trade away one’s moments
in passive consumption
of the glitter and glamor
of the basest, lowest
crudest ridiculist
at the table
the loosest lips
sinking the most
shock-ships, launching
the most depth-charges
to lower the lowest bar
confusing the line between
fiction and delusion
even further

Goal

A goal can be a concrete noun, if you’re playing soccer (football in most of the world), but as an abstract noun–“the result or achievement toward which effort is directed”–it is a squirrelly concept. Since the beginning of the year, I have read a pile of books on the concept of goal setting, creating and changing habits, motivation, and achieving goals. I’ve written about it in a series of posts (The theme for this year is “A Year of Finishing Novels”), but goals are shifty, and when captured tend to grow larger, or run further away.

I’ve never made a squirrel filter. That’s a good goal for today.

The Prompts

NaPoWriMo

Name your alter-ego, and then describe him/her in detail. Then write in your alter-ego’s voice.

Poem A Day

Write about what “they” never tell you.

The Poem

They Never Tell Me Where They Put the Goal Posts

They keep moving the goal posts
but never tell me where they put them
always changing the rules when
I think that I’ve learned them

They say good things come to those who wait
but never specify how long or what’s good
And while I’m waiting, imagining my good things coming
they move the goal posts again when I’m not looking

Of course they aren’t the ones in the now
in this crowd, feeling this beat pull them
from their seats to move their well-shoed feet
and return my smile

They say grab life by the horns
but they never say how it feels to be torn
when those horns gore through
or how long it will take for the wounds to heal

They say time heals all wounds
but they never specify how much time
and does this count as time waiting for good things?
Because that feels like a cheat, when the good things
I’m waiting for are a hit song and a huge cheering crowd
I’d rather not have wounds in the first place
if healing them is the good things I’m wasting time
waiting for, and if it’s the wound I got from grabbing
life’s horns, that’s a double cheat.

I shoulda grabbed life by the tail and held on tight
and let my legs fly out behind me
Gotta watch out for hooves ‘n shit, but it’d
be better than being gored and then not
getting good things because I’m waiting for
holes to heal. Where did those goal posts go?

They say nothing lasts forever
but I think waiting might if
I listen to them. Luckily
the music’s so loud
I can’t hear them
I can’t even hear myself