Benchmarking: The Carrot on a Stick and Feedback that I am inching closer and closer

Reflecting on one of my primary motivators, I realize I need benchmarks, a kind of baseline to indicate where I currently am, along with a carrot on a stick, a goal not to far off from where I am but indicating where I would like to go. I also need a lot of feedback to indicate that what I am doing is getting me closer to where I want to go, a kind of compass indicating I'm on the desired path.

Past Meeting the Present

I often recall the past, searching for recurring patterns, with the hopes of bringing something new to the present.

Language Implying Inclusivity and Exclusivity

I wonder what it would be like to intentionally use language that implies inclusivity and exclusivity, where my own labels are part of the inclusive language... as if my labels are the "desirable" "higher status" labels.

Perhaps I'll start calling myself a "brown person" and everyone else are "non-brown persons", as if implying they are somehow in the group that is to be excluded.

I wonder what it's like to be a non-brown person, and to even read the term "non-brown person"... How does it feel?

Averse to Feedback that Indicates my Needs Aren't Being Met

I find I'm often so averse to feedback that suggests my needs aren't being met that do my best to avoid the feedback... Instead of listening to the feedback, and doing what is necessary to address the needs to be met:

Me: If I floss, my gums will bleed... must avoid flossing! I don't want to know how bad things have gotten!

Me: If I exercise, it might indicate just how out of shape I have become... Must avoid all exercise at all cost, showing how much fitness I have lost!!!!

Facing Mortality and Pared down Priorities

Somehow situations where we're faced with issues of Life and Death... when we come into contact with Mortality itself... Our frame of mind suddenly gets pared down to essentials... For myself, my mind focuses on living, or continuing to live itself... to continue to survive or help survive... to help maintain shared living connections, being aware of how we share our lives with other living beings, and realizing how much we value such connections.

The last time I experienced firsthand issues related to life and death, my mind's narrative distilled towards ideas of Fostering Enjoyment and Fulfillment in those who live as best as possible for wherever we are at the moment.

Overarching Themes over the last few years: My Core Motivational Principles

As someone who is often quite scatterbrained, jumping place-to-place, being really into one activity, then losing interest and shifting to another, I've been reflecting on those activities I have Come Back To Consistently, time and time again...

After much reflection, it seems there are a few overarching themes to those things I feel continuously motivated to do:

- Self-Expression: Trying to increase and hone my skills in areas that help open up opportunities for personal self-expression. So often I feel unable to express myself, often times feeling like what is within gets Stuck, needing some kind of medium to get it out. It feels freeing to actually be able to come close to expressing my experience.

- Aesthetic Self-Stimulation: As someone who often relies on modulating my various moods and emotional states, I find aesthetic self-stimulation to be one of the tools I go to often, whether it's for self-expression as mentioned above, or just pure enjoyment from engaging the senses with something that somehow feels meaningful, or sometimes there exists pleasure from viewing, listening, doing, etc... I find I want to somehow be touched within, with Something From the Outside, Reaching Something on the Inside.

- Curiosity and Ongoing Exploration: I find the act of continuously learning to be extremely pleasurable and satisfying. Somehow filling my brain helps fill the feel-good (perhaps due to early conditioning experiences?). I feel especially satisfied if what I am learning is tied to (in my perception) The Experience of Being a Human.... The Experience of Living itself... with all the Joys and the Sorrows, and the storylines that go along with all the ups and downs that come along with our individual journeys on this rotating sphere that revolves cyclically around the sun.

The Bottom Rung of The Social Ladder

The bottom rung of the social ladder is where individuals who are perceived to be weak in some facet are pushed towards within an individual group.

The bottom rung is one step from being kicked out of a group, which feels deeply threatening to our existence as social beings whose historical survival depended upon belonging to a group: In nature, ostracized animals are typically the most vulnerable to death.

The bottom rung is where many individuals fiercely try not to be because it's so close to the edge... inching closer and closer to increased vulnerability... closer and closer to death...

The bottom rung, while perceived to be weak, paradoxically must have some source of continued strength and persistence in order to hang on to the edge while continuing to have to endure acts of submission.

The bottom rung, in many ways serves as the protector of a group, often by being sacrificed. The integrity of an entity or system tends to rely on a defined border, and the bottom rung often serves as the outer edge or border of the system we call a group.

The bottom rung therefore is an integral part of the larger system, and while vulnerable and given the least protection, for the benefit of the whole system, must be afforded some protections by those higher up the ladder.