Monday 8 March 2010

Things I might never do

I have no will power, there are so many things I have said I would do over the past couple of years that I haven't done.
A small sample:
  • Meditate regularly
  • Practice the Piano
  • Do the blog more regularly
  • Lose weight
I'm always able to do certain things, anything that requires reading and doing nothing else but passing judgment on the content seems to be easy to commit to (books on religion and Philosophy included). Anything related to listening to music (managing the collection, looking for decent FLAC players for the Mac) and of course there is always time for playing with the latest gadget whatever that is.

So what are the particular qualities of an activity or motivator that motivates us to do that activity? For me there has to be some kind of achievable goal, doing something for its own sake clearly is not enough, but that certainly is not the whole story. Maybe the goal has to be SEEN to achievable, and that would explain why each of us has different motivators depending on our faith in ourselves to do something.

For instance "practicing the piano", I know the result of that practice will allow me to participate more in the thing I love most (as opposed to the people I love most) MUSIC. But can I make myself sit down at that piano except to tinkle. There are no barriers, we have the piano, I know the techniques (I learned them as a youth ), so what stops me? Perhaps I have no faith in my capabilities to get further.

On the other hand, I had not planned to take up Woodwork and I know from previous experience that I don't have the hand eye coordination to be good at it. But Carol just mentioned that she needed a Tomato frame for the garden so I said I would build her one and then I bought a book on Garden woodworking projects and I find myself building a cold frame and then a bird table and looking forward to the next project (when the weather improves). Why did I think I would be able to achieve anything in woodwork when my history in woodwork (you should have seen them) is certainly not as good as my history in Music.

Is it I need the appreciation of others? That would fit in with Woodwork but it does not explain the huge amount of time I spend re- and re-organising the music collection, now why do i I do such a "train spotter" thing?

Another thing, I battle with my weight all the time at the moment I weigh 96kg and I have weighed between 85 and 100kg (once going up to nearly 110kg) and for a guy of 1.66m tall that is way too much. Now their are two parts to weight control Exercise & Food Intake (really that is all it is :-). Exercise I can do, and I do do, to the extent carol thinks I'm obsessive about it and given that physical exercise can be quite painful why do I do it? On the other hand I cannot control my diet, I just love to eat despite the consequences. Same goal, two approaches one works the other doesn't, explain that.

My daughter Kayleigh and her husband Mario gave me a "body flying" session (flying above a fan blowing winds at up to 200km/hr), but unfortunately I need to be below 95kg to participate (Kayleigh swears this was not on purpose). Anyway I thought getting rid of a few kilo's shouldn't give me to much trouble, boy was I wrong still 95kg and counting.

So I'm no closer to understanding what motivates me to do something, let alone anybody else. And what of my samples ... SNAFU ....bowlderised of course.