What’s My Motivation In This Scene?

It appears my continued existence basically comes down to fear and attachment. I am more afraid of death than I am of the pain of life, intolerable though that often seems. Or possibly more afraid of what might wait beyond death (comeuppance/karma.) And I am attached to the positive possibilities of this world. To fantasies of being a different person, or memories of who I used to be. To beauty in all it’s forms.

So it would seem to follow that until my fear of this life overwhelms my fear of death, or my attachments sufficiently diminish, I am stuck here.

The sensible response would be to focus on making the best of things. To minimizing my suffering, and appreciating whatever positives I can find.

I just can’t seem to bring myself to actually do that. The motivation isn’t there. It seems I won’t even lift a finger, even to save myself considerable pain down the road. There’s no hope left in me. There’s no vision of the future, no point where I can tell myself I’ll be ok. There’s no carrot – only a slightly smaller stick (that wasn’t supposed to sound like innuendo.) So I struggle to push myself through anything difficult or painful, knowing that my reward will be to briefly feel slightly less miserable.

I suppose that’s the essence of depression – when you lose the belief that things will ever be ‘ok’ again, and thereby lose your drive to try to make things less shitty for yourself.