Natural Motivations

People ask about motivation, and indeed look for motives, in all human activity. As if our desire to follow the rules of cause and effect must in some way contribute to why we think what we think, and how our thoughts contributes to our actions. It does after all make sense for a rational animal. Which is why, I suspect, when a human being does something so foul it makes us sick to our stomachs we find it so difficult to accept they actually ‘think’ rationally at all.

Many years ago when my father cut off all our money and we were homeless, my mother joked that she would start a health farm and market it under the banner ‘Come Starve With Me’.  Pointing out that circumstances often drive us, as well as proving the best diet for simply staying thin, is poverty. But one of the finest drivers of human activity I know, and one many thinkers have suggested is far more naturally human than any other, is selflessness. And I don’t mean inverted selfishness in doing things for one’s family or local community which always reflects upon oneself, but the true acts of selflessness like Shaftesbury fighting for the rights of children – things where you may or may not make a difference but you know you cannot turn away.

When so much motivation is for financial gain and therefore backward, it is refreshing to know some people can hold the whole of existence in their minds – and see their travel plans clearly.