So many grammar issues in my post – it’s a vision thing – let me try again

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 concept of detachment. I recognize that in your case the detachment your experiencing isn’t the same as choosing to practice the art of detachment. I wonder though if an intentional practice of detachment might help?

A skillful practice of detachment is difficult, and my observation is that it often leads to the trap of indifference. If I’m detached from desire or an outcome why bother, what the point? Its not unusual to find that the more someone progress in the practice the more they tend to disengage with life.  I know that is a trap I often fall into.

The intention of the practice is to be fully engaged in life, as it is in the moment, without attaching expectations, fears, hopes. Such Attachments tend to be based on the past with the affect of projecting oneself into some imagined future.

What is the motivation to do things?  Life

Regardless of circumstances, regardless of like or don’t like, you’re it, where even a choice of not playing is playing.  Life does not care, (in the usual way we define care) though Life does push, even demand, growth and new life. (Which is a kind of care) It’s just that the ego desire is that we had control of the process and that it be painless. (Growth always involves something “dying” so painless isn’t going to happen. Life devours life for Life. Every creation is a destruction, every destruction a creation)

… 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 the climb down and return to, what comes next… Happy ever after, we assume and don’t really wish to look further as the next story starts.   (As a metaphor the most important part of a journey is the return. To take back and apply what was learned. )

As a society we like the moment on the top, the gold metal. But you can’t live on top a mountain. Can you taste the conflict? Its the drama of the engagement with the struggle that pulls us into the story is the struggle, while the moment on the top is almost a bitter sweet one. At some level we know that the moment at the top doesn’t mean that much…

So which is it? The moment on top or the engagement that matters? When we tell our stories where do we spend the most time?

I enjoy watching the Olympics and like to hear the stories about what happened after the gold metal winners go home. After achieving that height, how well did they descend?  How many handled the descent as well as the assent? How many suffered depression? It seems to me that win or lose depression doesn’t care who to won or lost. In either case it is the ability to descend well that is a determining factor.

Is their choice here? I don’t know. I act as if there is. Its a work in progress… to engage in life as it is in the moment, saying Yes to Life as it is (A “knowing” that Life as it is, is 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. So, play????

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 may be the same. You’re writing the story,