Motive

Its what starting up shares with murder.  No wonder then that the word ‘serial’ is used as a prefix to only 1 non-homicidal word.

The simile extends further. Both starting up and murder happen broadly in 2 types of circumstances – either you do it because you just have to do it...because something burns inside you and you need to air it. In this case there is not much respect or consideration given to time, place, external (read market) conditions etc. Or you do it because you think you can get away with it. Because the time is right, because no one else seems to have thought of this particular way to do it, because you see a gap and you want to put a knife in it!

I believe it is a question of utmost importance to figure out what starts you up? The pundits will tell you that like most things in life, the answer even here lies somewhere in the middle.  A great idea that is ahead of its time will die soon...so will an idea that the promoter doesn’t believe in... irrespective of how much market sense it makes. The perfect murder then is equal parts motive and timing served on the rocks.

Sounds all buddhist im sure....but trouble comes when the bitch named ‘leap of faith’ props up. Logic, your ever faithful guardian, will take a few leaps in the opposite direction at this time. Probability, your time honored weighing scale,  will rapidly be reduced to ‘umm...can be done...but does seem risky’. Deduction, that unlimited credit line you kept drawing on, will suddenly start asking for a pin number. No amount of ‘timing is just right for this idea’ or ‘you have a great team now do it’ or ‘even if we capture 2% of this pie’ will help you make the decision. Stuck in this barren land, where none of what you’ve known or relied upon comes to your rescue,  you will start praying for an epiphany. 

When it happened to me, is when i realized how diligently, over the years, i had practiced the art of drowning my inner voice. So much so that today when i want it to shout out and show me the way...today when i scream into the well of my own conscience, all i hear is my own doubts being repeated many times over. The water is long gone...and I learn that unlike other wells, this one runs dry if you don’t draw from it.

I spent some time in that well. When i first discovered it was empty i remember feeling real fear..’Will it ever fill up again, will i ever be able to see myself...my true self ...in its clear waters or is that revelation forever lost to me’...these and many such questions filled my mind. Like a man drowning in quick sand...i kept throwing these questions at the darkness and it kept multiplying and throwing them back.

Then, as my eyes and ears started adjusting to the silence, I started picking up faint voices coming from under the surface.  I couldn’t completely make out what they were saying but i could feel it. It dawned on me that to fill up the well again, i needed to pay heed to these voices...no matter how feeble they were. That was perhaps the only way to fill up the well again...by beginning to draw on whatever was left of it. I understood that the only way to regain a crystal clear inner voice was to drink the muddy water and prove my commitment to getting there.

And then there was light. Atleast a bit of it. I knew that this post needed to be named ‘Motive’ and not ‘Motive and Timing’. Because it was motive that made me stay long enough in my well to seek the answers. No amount of external positive information could’ve kept me there. Infact, I believe that that’s why it’s called a leap of faith. Its like trying to jump from one peak to another, with a great, unfathomable chasm between the two. You’ve been told that there is gold, and food and women all waiting for you on that other peak. But none of that information is going to make you jump. All it’ll do is make you uncomfortable...now you really really wanna jump but what if?  Even if you do manage to jump, and say you don’t make it, you’ll feel like a failure (briefly before you die).

But with motive, things are different. Motive doesn’t talk about the promised land at all. Rather, its born from the fact that you’ve explored most of your current peak. You’ve started thinking, ‘maybe its time to peak again’, and that’s your motive. You look back at all the peaks you scaled and draw inspiration – but you don’t look too long lest you start feeling satisfied.  And then it happens...you can no longer be on this peak...you’ve smelt another altitude and it has started living inside of you. You feel your feet moving and there is no way or need to control them. The idea in your head starts gaining mass and the cosmos bends to give it velocity.

The act of jumping is then ordained and it no longer matters what story they tell about your jump in the land you left behind.