Motivation in an Absurd System

Motivation. Unmotivated. Struggle. Unfocussed. Futile. Questioning. Tired. Indifferent. Absurd.

These are all the words I drift towards when I try to describe the struggle, the inner urge to want to do something, but feeling an overwhelming sense of being unable to do so. I have periods, in fact very long periods, where I cannot “force” myself to do anything “productive” or “meaningful” at my job. The meaning of those words has become less clear recently. It’s like I’m fighting a battle with myself.

I believe that I need to see some kind of value, but again, I struggle to assign an exact meaning to the word “value” in something I do. I just know it when I see it, but I can’t pinpoint it. This search for value is usually a precursor to finding myself in an unpredictable oscillation between being highly motivated and totally disinterested, unmotivated, and completely apathetic to the situation and demands of the task at hand.

I regularly procrastinate, ruminate over, and toil with another arbitrary unit of work. An abstraction of value, a mere transactional exchange of hollow concepts and empty rhetoric. This Sisyphean labour pretends at creation while delivering only irrationality, offering the illusion of progress while actively undermining it. It is movement without direction, purpose masked as productivity.

I was paid spectacularly well, but nothing I produced had any value. No one I knew in the corporate world was producing any value, save for those who were completely deluding themselves. Even the most talented people spent all of their time trying (and failing) to stop uncaring amateurs and empty suits from blowing millions on nonsense.

— Nikhil Suresh, Why I Will Always Be Angry About Software Engineering

Paradoxically, outside the confines of work, I find myself immersed in personal projects. The contrast is revealing. It is not that my capacity for deep focus and sustained motivation is broken; it simply requires something I consider of authentic value - that same hard to pinpoint value. These personal projects don’t feel like pushing boulders up mountains; they feel like building something that might actually stay put. Here, I experience what Camus might call a revolt - the defiant creation of meaning in an otherwise indifferent universe.

Man stands face to face with the irrational. He feels within him his longing for happiness and for reason. The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world.

— Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays