The Unmoved Mover - Atlas Shrugged

Hank Rearden from Atlas Shrugged, reflecting on the steps he took over the years to invent a new metal alloy: “After a while, he realized that he was thinking of his past, as if certain days of it were spread before him, demanding to be seen again. He did not want to look at them; he despised memories as a pointless indulgence. But then he understood that he thought of them tonight in honor of that piece of metal in his pocket. Then he permitted himself to look. He saw the day when he stood on a rocky ledge and felt a thread of sweat running from his temple down his neck. He was fourteen years old and it was his first day of work in the iron mines of Minnesota. He was trying to learn to breathe against the scalding pain in his chest. He stood, cursing himself, because he had made up his mind that he would not be tired. After a while, he went back to his task; he decided that pain was not a valid reason for stopping. He saw the day when he stood at the window of his office and looked at the mines; he owned them as of that morning. He was thirty years old. What had gone on in the years between did not matter, just as pain had not mattered. He had worked in mines, in foundries, in the steel mills of the north, moving toward the purpose he had chosen…. “He saw an evening when he sat slumped across his desk in that office. It was late and his staff had left; so he could lie there alone, unwitnessed. He was tired. It was as if he had run a race against his own body, and all the exhaustion of years, which he had refused to acknowledge, had caught him at once and flattened him against the desk top. He felt nothing, except the desire not to move. He did not have the strength to feel-- not even to suffer. He had burned everything there was to burn within him; he had scattered so many sparks to start so many things-- and he wondered whether someone could give him now the spark he needed, now when he felt unable ever to rise again. He asked himself who had started him and kept him going. Then he raised his head. Slowly, with the greatest effort of his life, he made his body rise until he was able to sit upright with only one hand pressed to the desk and a trembling arm to support him. He never asked that question again.” I have spent a lot of time contemplating the source of motivation, the source of action, what inspires people to do what they do. In sales, we are taught that people make decisions, or take actions, based on their emotional responses to things-- present an individual with a visually pleasing scenario, and they will automatically respond in a predictable manner. This is a mechanistic and unflattering view of how humans operate. Perhaps some people are so passive that they live their lives according to knee-jerk reactions, where car commercials and fast-food tag lines drive the motor inside of them. But I refuse to accept that it has to be this way. The above description is basically how dogs operate-- they see something they like, and the tail starts a’waggin. So what does drive people? On what do you base your decisions? When presented with two options, how do you know which one to pick? The obvious answer is, you weigh the relative values of the two options, and chose the one that makes more sense-- you make a rational decision based on evidence. Yeah, but what compelled you to weigh the evidence in the first place? What is the difference between the passive individual that is acted upon by commercials (and the world in general), and the active individual that acts upon the world? The difference is will. There is no deeper level, no more profound analysis. The former person is choosing-- willfully choosing-- to not exercise his will, while the latter individual is actively exercising his will. When you are exhausted, too tired to complete a task that you know needs to be finished-- and please don’t take my word, check this on your own-- you can succumb to that feeling, or you can shift into the next gear. Most people never scratch the surface of what they are truly capable of accomplishing. There are a surprising number of gears deep within human consciousness, if you decide to search for them. I am currently in the last stage of my contest prep for the 2010 NPC Philadelphia Bodybuilding show, and I am officially starting to feel like death. Every day gets just a little bit harder, as my calories fall lower, my daily output (cardio/weights/work load) increases, and I can feel my body is starting to shut down. I am clicking off the days on the calendar to ensure that I have enough to get to the stage. Over the weekend, I dropped my food even lower than normal, and could hardly find the energy to put one foot in front of the other while doing my cardio. In part, it was a tactical error, and I realized I was dropping my calories too low, so I fixed that. But in part, I realized I was starting to break down, to fray at the edges, to give in. My head was pinned against the desk, similar to Hank Rearden’s in Atlas Shrugged; I felt I had spread so many sparks to start so many things that I had no spark left to run my own engine. And I looked around, hoping somebody might lend me that spark. I was motivated in looking at my beautiful wife, and my beautiful daughter-- and yes, even a handful of my clients that are currently very successful. But it wasn’t enough. I needed something more. I went in this past Wednesday to train legs, still feeling wiped out. I thought about skipping the workout, or maybe dialing back the intensity a touch. I looked in the mirror and realized: right now, 90% of the people getting on stage in 4 weeks are telling themselves the same thing, trying to rationalize and justify why it’s okay at this point to “lighten up a bit”, to “take it a little easier”. That other 10% is what scares me. Somewhere out there, there is an individual I have never met who is investing his life into annihilating me on stage, who is willing to do whatever it takes to be successful. That individual will find a spark, whether there’s one left or not. He will shift into a higher gear, a gear I haven’t yet discovered, and he will walk onto the stage knowing, with full confidence, that he did everything in his power to be successful. “Screw it, throw another plate on the bar. I don’t care if I die, I’m finishing this workout”. Aristotle talked about the “Unmoved Mover”. It was basically his version of God, the thing that made the universe work. The Unmoved Mover was an entity that somehow moved itself, but nothing else could move it, and by virtue of that fact, it never ran out of steam, never tired, never quit. It was the source of all motion and activity in the universe. Regardless of your spiritual inclinations, I think it’s safe to say that every individual on this planet is an Unmoved Mover. Yes, we are inspired from various corners, we are led down certain paths, but when it comes right down to it, it is us, as individuals, that have to choose whether to walk down that path, that have to choose whether to heed a calling or not. End of the week, 4 weeks out, and feeling much better than I did beginning of the week. I found that next gear, that spark, and reclaimed my place as an Unmoved Mover within the universe. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfeNVSqg6RU -David A. Johnston