Survival and suffering is external motivation

[Sugarcoat]

22 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

What?

 

My reaction too 🤣🤣

[Sugarcoat]

If I’d like to have a nice self image and I am identified with my looks I might go to the gym and improve my body. That is internal motivation. And that is survival and it comes with its fair share of suffering

[Sugarcoat]

On 2025-07-29 at 9:55 PM, Carl-Richard said:

But if you accept what is happening, it becomes your identity. And if you accept everything that is happening, your identity becomes everything; your identity becomes God

There’s more than just a lack of acceptance standing in between me and god. 

Edited Thursday at 03:50 PM by Sugarcoat

[UnbornTao]

On 7/30/2025 at 7:31 PM, Carl-Richard said:

What are the anti-natalists so worried about? "We're imposing life on somebody who didn't choose it". They did not "self-determine" their existence. And in their existence, they don't self-determine everything that happens (only a part, if that). So they suffer. But if your self-identity is equal to everything that happens, then you self-determine everything.

The model that describes internal vs external motivation is called "Self-determination theory". Internal motivation is about self-determined behavior, doing what you feel compelled to do by yourself. If you are the entirety of reality, then everything that happens in reality is you doing what you feel compelled to do by yourself. So everything that happens becomes internal motivation. It's determined by you. You are causing everything to happen, you are choosing everything to happen. 

Acceptance is allowing something to exist, and ultimately, it's about making something a part of yourself. If you deny something the right to exist, that is you resist it, you reject it, you don't want it to be a part of your reality. You want to be separated from it. You want to not be with it, be it. If you want to not be separate from it, to love it, then that's acceptance. Acceptance is just another word for love.

When you love somebody, be it your partner or family, you accept them into your life. When your love is finite, you accept only some things but not others. But if your love is infinite, you accept everything. Accepting everything is loving God, loving yourself as all of reality.

I think I understand now, thanks.

No, wait - how is motivation metaphysical?

Edited Thursday at 08:45 PM by UnbornTao

[Carl-Richard]

On 31.7.2025 at 10:14 PM, UnbornTao said:

I think I understand now, thanks.

No, wait - how is motivation metaphysical?

How is anything metaphysical? "Metaphysical" just means a basic aspect of reality. Motivation is just another word for drive, or impetus. It's that which compels action (in an agent, something that is capable of action). It's an extension of that which causes movement (e.g. the Newtonian concept of "force"), for example objects in motion causing other objects to move. When you make the objects into agents (either internal or external agencies), you have motivation. If the very thing that makes you act in the world isn't metaphysical, I don't know what is.

When you make the agent the entire universe, all agency and all motivation becomes internal to you.

Edited 5 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Carl-Richard]

On 31.7.2025 at 5:49 PM, Sugarcoat said:

There’s more than just a lack of acceptance standing in between me and god. 

There is ignorance which veils the will towards acceptance. Maya, karma, samskara.

Edited 5 hours ago by Carl-Richard