Motivation

I was just inputting some of my notes and came across the word hurt. I had underlined it three times so that I would remember how intense it had been. When I transcribed it, I changed the font to bold. Which got me wondering how to convey everything that I meant with just that one word. We've become so used to text messaging and all the word processing that allows us to make shortcuts.

But I need to show the who, what, when, where, why and how of that hurt. I tend to write with the radio on. Primarily country music because each song is a short story. While I was thinking about Alex and how he hurt, I want you to live by George Canyon came on the radio. The words are evocative and heart-wrenching. The video doubly so because I know the air force base at which it was filmed. But the lyrics do a brilliant job of showing all the emotion contained in the title.

And while the song is full of a hurt so different from Alex's, I realized why I underlined and bolded that word. Alex thinks his hurt is physical. There's a lot of pain in his body. But deeper than that is the pain in his soul. He's been bruised and battered in ways he can't comprehend. He doesn't understand and that, as much as the pain itself, leads him to behave in such an uncharacteristic way.

Despite the above link, I can't watch the video too often. Alex can't look beneath the surface of his hurt to the wounds that run soul deep. But both are excellent studies in motivation.