Hi Murtaza

It takes a strong person to get help when they need it so well done. I watch my brother struggle with mental health issues and I know its not easy.  Do you have access to talk therapy to go along with the medication assistance?  My brother found it helpful if only to accept that he needed the medication.

You are asking a question that often comes up with the practice of Buddhism and the idea of detachment. I recognize that in your case the detachment your experiences isn’t the same as choosing to practice the art of detachment. I wonder though if a intention practice of detachment might help?

That said a skillful practice of detachment if difficult my observation is that it often leads to indifference. If I’m detached from desire or a outcome why bother, what the point? I’ve often observed that the more someone progress in the practice the more they disengage with life.  I know that is a trap I often fall into.

The intention is to be fully engaged in life as it is in the moment without attaching expectations, fears, hopes all of which tend to be based on the past while projecting one self into some imagined future.

What is the motivation to do things?  Life

Regardless of circumstances, regardless of like or don’t like your in it and even a choice of not playing is playing. Life does not care, (in the usual way we define care’) though it does push (demand) for growth and new life (which is a kind of care, we just desire to control the process)

I like watching movies and stories about mountain climbers. Have you noticed that 95 percent of the story tends to be focused  on the struggle to get to the top, 1 or 2 percent about being on top with the remainder if any about climbing coming down.  (As a metaphor the most important part is the return. To take back and apply what was learned during the struggle.)

We as a society tend to focus on the moment on the top, the gold metal which would be great if life stopped their, but you can’t live on top a mountain. But this is a conflict as its the drama of the engagement that pulls us into the story is the struggle. So which is it the moment on top or the engagement that matters?

I watch  the Olympics and pay attention to the stories after the gold metal winners go home. After achieving that height how well do they descend? How many will suffer depression? How many will handle the descent as well as the assent? Its seems win or lose depression doesn’t care who to attack.

Is their choice here? I don’t know. I act as if their is. Its a work in progress… to engage in life as it is in the moment, saying Yes to Life as it is (Experiencing that as Love) while Detached from desire or outcome. Sounds like a contradiction but it isn’t.

Joseph Campbell when asked a question about meaning and purpose said that There was no point in asking the question when You are the answer.  Life does not give you meaning or purpose it is you regardless of circumstance, that gives meaning and purpose to Life.

What is the motivation to do things without dopamine or reward? What is the motivation to do things with dopamine with and without reward? I suspect the answer can be the same. Your writing the story.