Hacker News Reader

Comment by tjoff | Hacker News Reader

> If you did, you would do these things that you think make them better with no effort.

There is a whole lot of assumptions in that sentence. To start, why would doing the right thing be effortless?

Add to that, if you are in a bad state you are likely to be pessimistic of the outcome of the task which makes it even harder. And fighting that is anything but effortless.

You could argue that when you are in a perfect state stars will align but even if you truly believe that the effort to get to that place will often be nothing but heroic and most people will never achieve it.

So it just feels like moving the goalpost? Which is fine if framing it like that gets you closer to where you want to be. But I'd need more convincing to believe that would be easier (for me).

View on HN

the underlying assumption is that there is no tension between satisfying the world and satisfying your own need for tranquility.

[edit] I haven't done a lot of therapy, but I sought out an existential therapist in Buenos Aires and saw her weekly for a year while I was there and severely depressed. It helped me get over seeing myself as the center of the narrative, and made me realize everyone else was too trapped in theirs to notice most of the flaws I saw in myself. It also helped me come to terms with how the world being fucked up is neither my fault or something I can fix. But the real, true house on the cliff is unattainable. In the darkest and most honest moments, I'd admit it's not even what I want. As my ex's mother once said, I thrive on crisis. She didn't mean it well.

> To start, why would doing the right thing be effortless?

Because doing things you want to do does not require effort.

Real life example from the past - sewage system problem - I have shit all over the floor in my basement. It's late night next days are some celebrations. I can have this shit all over my floor it can wait for somebody to clean it, or it can just stay there, or I can clean it. You would think cleaning up shit is just that, it sucks regardless. But my experience is different. If you keep repeating to yourself false narration "I don't want to be doing this" that's hell. But after accepting the situation, deciding which option do you want, doing what you want to do is really effortless. Out of all the things this is what I want to be doing right now. If not, I'm not doing it.

Narration matters a lot and it seems pretty straightforward that when you think you don't want to be doing the thing that YOU decided and are doing right now, you have some cognitive dissonance.

(remember - no wishful thinking - thinking I want to have it clean but without doing any actions is no different than taunting yourself that you have no wings)

> no tension between satisfying the world and satisfying your own need

There isn't any. It's enough to try to satisfy your needs and doing what you want. But be observant and introspect.

People who are perceived as egoists are not optimizing for their own well being. You can't be happy when you are surrounded by people who are not happy.

When you want to support some charity and do something for the world, where does it come from? It's you, it's your need. It feels good. Not just a fleeting high, but like a feeling about your life in general. We seem to have that built in.

I mean regardless of the source, just look how it's unnecessarily nested narration. Your needs vs needs of others, where needs of others is what you feel is needed to do for others. It's still your needs, if you think you should be helping others it's you who feels that.

I am a bit envious of your apparent lack of akrasia. I read a similar argument to yours by Abraham Maslow ("Motivation and Personality" I believe?) and have the same reaction then as I do now. The inner worlds of different human beings can be radically different. Sometimes we forget that and assume our experiences or ways of experiencing are universal. Some people have aphantasia, others (more lucky perhaps) don't have akrasia or at the very least can sufficiently overcome it by bringing to mind whether or not one wants to do the task at-hand. Not all of us are so blessed, although all of us could probably benefit from weighing the costs and benefits of doing tasks that we believe need to be done but still have resistance to doing.

Akrasia is like anxiety. It's not that I don't have it. It's just that I would debug quickly (and after some time it happens somewhat automatically). So 80% of time I indeed won't do the task that's been waiting for long. But I'm not anxious about it. I just realize that this isn't what I want to do right now.

When you look at akrasia, the problem is not that you are not doing something. It's this painful cognitive dissonance. Unresolved conflict in your narration. Both doing the thing is fine and not doing it is fine. But suffering by doing it while telling your self you don't want to do it or not doing it while telling yourself that you do is completely avoidable.

And yeah, I agree about different experiences. Which makes communication funny - same words but two very different contexts and interpreters. Which is why I'm so verbose about the thing I was describing.

I don't think we have the same definition of effort.

All options regarding sewage in your basement takes a lot of effort. Identifying and doing the least sucky option doesn't make it not suck.

I agree that it is helpful to frame it in a way that you choose to do it because its the best way forward. But that has absolutely nothing to do with effort and trying to recalibrate is as effortless does nothing but dilute and dismiss the effort you are putting into it.

Lots of things take effort, some things like workouts can (as with most things, in moderation) be more meaningful the more effort is provided.

> Narration matters a lot and it seems pretty straightforward that when you think you don't want to be doing the thing that YOU decided and are doing right now, you have some cognitive dissonance.

It is just a matter of perspective. You choose to do it because you want it done. It is an axiom. Not liking the situation does not equal cognitive dissonance.

If it helps you to not obsess about something, great. But that is a whole other topic.

Yes, I agree. What I meant by effort is this context is using your willpower.

To me there's a huge mental shift once you decided 100% on something and there's no questioning it. It may be tiring, but it just flows. This is what I call effortless in this context. Because it does not require any willpower to do it, even if it requires thinking or strength. You are locked in.

I mean whether it's coding or gym, surely you must have experienced it. When you are in the middle of the activity and you are not questioning whether you should be doing it or not.

The state of flow is familiar to most coders. Coding is nice because your mind is so busy building the castle that there is no place to be thinking about yourself. There is just code. So you are not questioning whether coding is something that you currently want to be doing. The same state can be achieved doing just about anything and to me the trick is to make narration without contradictions. Out of all things in the world, given my current life context writing this comment is the thing I want to do the most. Even if nobody reads it.

Btw I don't have that luxury 100% of the time. I can get hang up on the question of what do I actually want (in my case it usually drops down to not being honest with myself regarding the fact that what I really want is more sleep).

Regarding not liking situation, one that you choose to be in. I've had big mental shift from thinking in patterns of "lesser evil" and choosing what you want packages from the reality you are in (i.e. dropping wishful thinking). IT seems subtle but it's not.

"You choose to do it because you want it done. It is an axiom." is the right track. But not liking it, is the same as not liking that the sky is not green. It's fair, you might have preferred the green sky by a lot, but it's so ridiculous that you wouldn't experience anything negative because of that. It's the same with reality you are in and options available to you.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com