Whether I'm crafting a birthday card, maintaining an acceptable GPA or dueling a shark with legs, lungs and an attitude, I'd like to consider myself a mostly motivated person. I want to appreciate friends, impress parents and slay mutant cartilaginous beasts almost as much as I don't want to fail - especially when failure implies death ... even academic death.
There came a time a few days ago when my notion of self-described "motivation" faltered underneath a new perspective. Motivated, if I can use the word, by a new person two questions emerged: Am I as motivated as I think I am? How admirable is it to be motivated anyway? I still marvel at my ability to make introductions with interesting people self-centered.
Meet Waffle. That's right. Waffle. He has a human name, too, but why on earth (with a nickname like "waffle") would that be relevant? Waffle was born in Cambridge, England, grew up in San Rafael, Calif., and now lives in Southern Germany where he studies at the University of Konstanz. This past weekend he visited my friend at Tufts, a high school buddy, marking the first time he's been home to the United States in nine months. He's living 5,811 miles from his hometown. I'm living 3.4.
What's inspiring about Waffle isn't that he can eat eleven bananas in five minutes, wears fluorescent shorts in 18 degree weather and can curl (and can love it). But he's probably the most unmotivated motivated guy I've met. Well, he's at least the most unmotivated motivated guy I've met who sweeps for fun.
He does motivation right. That is, he isn't "motivated" at all. He's motivating. If high school over-achievers are motivated by parents, grades and failure, and if shark wrestlers find motivation from their endorphins, probable deaths and stupidities, Waffle finds his from Waffle.
I sat down with him recently to try to make sense of his ambiguous I-can-not-care-about-what-you-think-I-should-care-about philosophy. Waffle wasn't motivated by his parents, classmates, friends or adherence to norms to all. In fact, he abandoned his friends and family upon moving to Germany. Where and how did this conclusion arise? "I wanted to stand out from classmates," he told me. "When I go to parties I'm, like, the most interesting person there."
Deadlines and schools don't bother my feisty, germane German friend. Of course, one could argue other exterior influences do - such as others' perspectives and the placement within the group of which one's a part - but that describes, in some minute sense, everyone Waffle renounces, like the legs of pants.
I hardly live up to such a liberated potential, not in a macro sense, anyway - I may have chosen what to dedicate myself to over spring break (rereading the Harry Potter series, of course), but never have I considered forgoing the break, by means of forgoing its system. The man. The establishment. The anything else Jack Black would have raged against in School of Rock.
Waffle is AC/DC. I'm The Pussy Cat Dolls. Where I find macro-motivation parallels, Waffle finds quantities of freedom that I wouldn't know how to handle, life's exterior - there's nothing self-motivated about it. Motivation isn't important, motivating is. How one reads for class isn't as important as what one reads for fun.
Do I still consider myself a motivated person? I decided to ask Waffle. I then decided that wouldn't be very self-motivated at all. I'm not as internally motivated as I thought I was, but Waffle has shown me, intentionally or not, something I don't want to ignore. Maybe I'll start wearing shorts in January.
