Action vs Motion: Finding The Balance in the Madness of Life

Hi there everyone, I'd like to start off by saying that I'm sorry that things have been a fairly quiet in the Discord the last few weeks and that there has been a general lack of content on the Twitch and YouTube front.

It is not really the state that I want the community to be in, but unfortunately external factors that are both in and out of my control are the reason for the lull.

I'll outline some of those factors later in the post, but I'd like to talk about a concept that I have been mulling over since the beginning of the year. It is the concept of Action vs Motion. To understand the concept, you need to understand the definition of both "Action" and "Motion". I must also say that for me, all of this is within the context of content creation, whether it be Discord related things, streaming, written or video content.

Right, so lets start with "Motion". Motion in the above context is everything that goes into planning. It's the ideas for new content, the scheduling of streams and the writing of scripts for videos. It's also the planning with other people to get to the point where you are able to create content with them. Basically, it's all the pre-work needed before you can do any actual work. It's the Motion that starts you off in a certain direction.

"Action" then, is actually doing what you had planned to do. It's filming the videos, running the livestream or cough writing this blog post. It is the act of doing what you set out to do, it is reaching your destination in the journey that the Motion set you off on.

So why am I telling you about all this? Well, it's because I personally find it very difficult to find the balance between these two things. Action without Motion is random and sporadic. Motion without Action is meaningless busywork with no results. There has to be a balance between the two. I've heard some people say that it is better to just take Action, because you get into the habit of making content and doing something is always better than thinking about doing something. While I tend to agree with this, I do feel like if you only ever took Action, you would not have any meaningful direction to your content. It would lack purpose. You would be doing for the sake of doing and that is not something I wish to do. On the other hand, it is exceptionally easy to fall into the trap of feeling like you're making progress and acomplishing things when in fact you're not, i.e. Motion without Action. It is this side of the spectrum that I often find myself in. I enjoy planning, I have tons of ideas for content, but they don't always result in an end product. I end up being busy with things that ultimately don't result in anything.

I believe another part of the problem is that I sometimes try to do too many things at the same time, which also results in no Action being done, because there simply isn't enough capacity to cope with everything. There are of course other external factors that affect both sides of the spectrum as well. For me, motivation is a huge one (which in turn, also has it's own external factors affecting it), and I often find that when it gets to the point where Action is required, I've lost motivation to do so.

So hopefully this is all not too gloomy sounding, definitely not my intention to sound down in the dumps, but it is something that I battle with and ultimately, I want to be transparent about it as it affects a lot of aspects of the community. I would also like to say that it is something that I am working hard to improve and that I'm positive that I can do so. I believe that finding a balance between Action and Motion is something that is different for each person, so I am going to do my best to do so.

Now, earlier in the post I said I would touch on some of the factors that have caused the community to be rather quiet of late. I really hate making excuses but unfortunately sometimes "life happens" and this was largely a case of that. Firstly I have a pretty demanding job, mentally at least, and it takes a lot of focus and energy away from my reserves. The start of this year has been particularly bad though as we've had to catch up hours that we lost over the December holidays. Then, while being super busy, my PC decided that it was time to have issues and my motherboard died. On top of that, the current state that we find ourselves in happenend. For future readers, I'm referring to the COVID-19 Outbreak. We are currently in lockdown and I am unable to replace my motherboard until after we're allowed out again. I've temporarily moved some of my hardware to my work tower, since I'm now working from home. However I don't want to cause too much rework for myself by moving HDDs around and reinstalling games and all the rest. So this is why I have not put out any new content of late and have not been streaming.

I was not the best at communicating all this, because frankly, it got me feeling rather down. But this was a mistake on my part and again, I apologise for the lack of comms.

I am certainly not quitting or giving up, but for now, while we're in lockdown, I will be focussing on finding the balance between Action and Motion, so that when I have everything setup again, I can be consistent in making the content that I love making. I will also be working on getting the Discord more of a fun place to hang out while we are in lockdown and I will try organise a few gaming events while we're all stuck at home.

I want to close by saying thank you to everyone who is part of the community. You're all amazing and there wouldn't be an HTE without you ❤️

Stay tuned for more updates soon ;)