Demotivation

I stumbled across this random piece of film, thought I would share it with the world. I don't get all the Nazi imagery (bunch of douchebags), but the music is kind of cool, and it does have a weird sense of continuity.

Speaking of weird continuity, I almost finished an interesting book- The Alchemist, by one Paulo Coehlo, late of Brazil. It deals with a young man from Spain who wishes to travel to Egypt, where he will seek out a treasure revealed to him in dreams. A strange start, true. However, the young man is a shepherd by trade, and so, to get to Africa he needs to sell his sheep. This is a pretty drastic step, until an old man pops up and tells him, go for it! So he does. Slowly but surely, he makes his way across the desert, along the way ruminating on something the old man told him, about a Personal Legend. (It's capitalized like that in the book). This Personal Legend is kind of the story of your life, what you're meant to do in the world. (If I'm to actually accomplish something before death, it looks like your humble narrator is pushing the bounds of immortality at this point...) At any rate, the young man looks for and usually finds omens, things pointing him in the right direction. Although a little heavy-handed on the pop psychology, the story is a good one, and the idea of Personal Legends is an interesting one. It also raises the question- do we determine our own destiny, or is it, like a legend, already written? If so, are we the star of this legend, the hero that we know ultimately will succeed, even when he seems in deepest peril, or are we just some extra in someone else's Greatest Story Ever Told, to die along the wayside, perhaps in service to someone else, who will never let our memory die? But then again, perhaps the legend is still being written. From the context of the book, it would seem that our legends are part pre-ordained, part improvised on the spot. Where we go is a product of our own past actions and decisions. However, at every step of the way, we find a decision to be made, another choice, and these can affect what happens next. And on it goes. Perhaps there is a path laid out ahead of us, although that makes life seem pretty overly simplified. All you do is move from one clue to the next. Perhaps it's more organic than that, always shifting based on the decisions we make.

Although on the other hand, having a plan and a destination in mind will help tremendously. Without this, you tend to wander. I spent more than a few years doing just that- instead of making things happen, I waited for them to happen to me. (I don't recommend this as a course of action for your life, by the way). Without a clear purpose, you tend to grasp whatever comes floating down the river. This will usually get you nowhere. Rather, (again, going heavy on the pop psychology), pick a goal and figure out how to get to that goal. Good luck, failing all else!