I have long proclaimed boredom to be my driver, the thing that motivates me. With boredom holding my hand and dragging me forward I have written two books and published them, I have written short stories and poems, then when that didn’t give me lasting satisfaction I have started painting.

Everything I do seems to be pointless. In the pursuit of an activity I have focus, I have drive, I have the ambition to push until I have achieved what I see as a success, be it a recognisable painting, an exciting story or something else. Once I am happy with what I’ve done I don’t care anymore and to further perform the action seems pointless.

I read online that successes feeling pointless is due to being forced to value success too much as a child, this isn’t what has happened to me. Do your best was all I was ever told. Maybe that is why I see my own successes as pointless, maybe all I care for is the pursuit.

Take my paintings as an example; I don’t care for money enough to try selling them and I don’t care for their aesthetics enough to want to keep them. My enjoyment, my enthusiasm, my happiness even comes from the creation of the piece.

Now I even think about work and how I feel drained afterwards. after work I just want to sit and eat, then just sleep although eating doesn’t seem as enjoyable anymore.

People say it’s the journey that matters and not the destination. When I’m done with something there’s nothing, no reward really and no reason to push. My enjoyment comes from the battle, the time that I am writing or painting or working or going through the story of a game.

As I’ve grown older I’ve come to realise that the most pointless thing in life is to succeed because there’s nothing after, at least when you fail you have the struggle ahead to look forward to.

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Image credit to Gerd Altmann on Pexels