Motivation is an absolute science

If you seek greatness you must have capacity for madness and be a glutton for punishment - madness, not straight jacket wearing, howling at the moon madness, rather an insane belief in your abilities and great faith, albeit vague conviction of your purpose in this reality. In the words of Pheroze Nowrojee, you must believe that it is enough to believe and that failure to pursue conviction is in itself failure no matter the odds you face.

This notion sheds light on great struggles and consequent strugglers. Sometimes why one fights, is explained by what makes one fight. This could be any one of the numerous physical, emotional and spiritual motivations which are often personal to the degree of inexplicability.

Interesting then that the lack of purpose presents itself as the inverse to self-worth and self-esteem; the man without vision rarely perishes alone for they infect friends and family with crippling lethargy and stand in opposition to those around them who may display even a nuance of self-drive and motivation. Unmotivated people stand as a barrier to those seeking purpose in their lives. This barrier is as tall or short, strong or weak as the number of persons in a given society who are devoid of purpose.

 Motivation must therefore be crafted as an exercise in the implementation of a collective conscience and for once I am glad religion beat me to that punch. You see for any form of ‘good’ to prevail, its proponents must seek to counter any and all manner of detrimental leanings. Evil and evil doers have enjoyed great success over the years owing to a reactionary strategy by those opposed to evil as the counter to evil. Evil doers learned eons ago that when cards are held close to chest, and their plans strategically revealed to only be glimpsed at, they are free to play their cards only after moral men have made plain their strategy to counter the perceived evil, which is in actuality a glimpse of the grand plans; a ruse and bait.

Therefore if you seek to spur members of a given society to morality, they must be forced to confront and not evade evil with motivation to confront evil being the primary weapon. Now then how do you motivate members of society to confront immorality, I’d say by teaching and from as early an age as possible, that the lack of purpose is in actuality the mother of all evils. Purpose then must be crafted to follow talent which is a naturally occurring gift innate in all humans. If society is designed to celebrate and demand purpose and the pursuit of amplifying talent by all, then those in opposition of talent and purpose will be deemed evil doers. 

Motivation is therefore as absolute a science as it is spirituality and I dare say religion (remember the parable of the talents) – it isn’t enough for those who do not work not to eat, rather those who do not work towards unearthing and nurturing talent, and those not motivated and not actively engaged in motivating others should not eat; for these two noble pursuits, talent and purpose are the very essence of humanity’s raison d'etre in this reality.

Rid yourself of idiots ...

Once more stuck in a rut.

Dragged into the rot.

Caught up in a whirlpool of mediocrity

Shameless hypocrisy … impending catastrophe.

Madness, folly, unrelenting tug at inescapable leash.

Wander not culpable monarch does wish,

For faceless fear doth demand and govern,

Desire to impede your desire to sojourn.

You are in life what you should not be

For you have in life some that shouldn’t be.

Technology, Entertainment and Violence - the unholy alliance.

“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” ― Isaac Asimov

We have all found ourselves in the midst of self-proclaimed experts. Tea ladies suddenly metamorphosize into political scientists during election years, Chelsea Football Club fans are now suddenly in possession of legacy and do not get me started on the recently concluded and grossly over-hyped Mayweather vs Pacquiao fight. It’s laughable how we are socialized to so readily present our opinion even when ignorant of and sometimes wholly oblivious to the topic at hand.

I have been pondering upon the Mayweather vs Pacquiao fight recently; firstly as one in awe of the power of advertising for this one fight gripped the world’s imagination for months if not years. I held debates with loved ones both young and old all presenting differing opinions but united in anticipation. However the end result was a worldwide groan of disappointment prior to the tidal wave of anger and vitriol especially directed at Floyd Mayweather.  The communal ‘foaming in the mouth’ angry reaction to the boxing match struck me as an interesting reaction. I wondered what people expected but was suddenly cognizant of how ignorant people are of the relationship between business, entertainment and social engineering. The fact that some thought that two crafty sportsmen with even craftier handlers, staring down the barrel of retirement and having maneuvered themselves into a contract worth more than the budgets of all forty six counties in Kenya combined, would actually mete out violence on each other is as sad as it is laughable. 

Secondly comes the one hundred and fifty million dollar question – “who the hell do you think you are?” No seriously, what makes one imagine that two professional athletes would risk life and limb for their entertainment? That supposition is in itself indicative of a widely accepted mental malady in today’s society. Violence much like our ugali has become a staple diet much consumed and sadly much loved. Take a moment to recall a time when your favorite television series was not based on the partaking in violence or at least the justification of violence. All the blockbuster movies in the last decade or so have adhered to this mantra irrespective their genre. The latest but no so recent addition is ‘interactive violence’ in the way of popular video games running on extremely powerful hardware platforms like the PlayStation and Xbox. These interactive and deeply immersive programs boost impressive technological advances like the glory of high definition, carefully crafted interfaces, server farms which allow you to partake in the gore with equally ‘special’ friends around the world and reward systems bound to trigger addiction.

Now before the boxing fans come at me swinging (that is if they can muster the fitness to swing), allow me state that I am not implying that all partakers and consumers of violent and mature content are prone to violence. Granted they are obviously attracted to violence but cannot be deemed to be violent people. Remember we have seen far more violent generations like the crusaders, conquistadors, slave traders, inquisitors among other equally devilish lovers of death, who did not have PlayStations. The acceptance of and desensitization to violence is clearly in the interest of powerful business entities as it makes for good business. I wonder would our sisters gravitate to Olivier Pope with such gusto had Scandal been about turning people to Christ? Clearly we are either a generation which loves violence and mature themes or one that has been taught to love violence, so much so that we would not only demand it but decry the lack of it. However we must concede to the fact that violence is all around us and features heavily on all media and interactive platforms. It is heavily evangelized and easily accessible.

As a technologist I am constantly nagged by two questions – is there a system or shadowy group of persons bent on convincing us that violence is not only acceptable, but also enjoyable, and if so to what end? Or are we simply violence junkies in need of a steady diet of blood and gore and mature themes, and if so how did this come about? Either way it is sad to see such impressive technologies working in concert to create and disseminate alarming and often outright disgusting levels of violence.