I like this framing, and have had thought about framing it in similar ways. I am glad to see someone else make a similar abstraction.
I also want to highlight that there are potentially significant negative consequences of using this kind of motivation in the long run, and that I am still confused about the tradeoff of what I would usually call “internal violence” and “urge propagation” (though those are both confusing terms, and I would not want them to become the default for the things I am pointing at). The thing you describe feels fairly internally violent to me.
Can you expand what you mean by internal violence? If it means what I intuitively read it as, then it hasn’t been my felt experience (though there’s always the possibility that it’s occurring and I’m not recognizing it, and if so I’d like to know)
From the inside, it feels like setting up my life so that it’s natural to act. I sometimes do fall short, but I don’t beat myself up about it because I feel like I put in the appropriate effort. I don’t blame myself if I get sick and can’t do something, or forget something on a one-off (particularly if I figure out why I forgot and make actions to change it.)
Rationality/CFAR instrumental techniques such as urge propagation or TAPs or whatnot never worked for me. They felt like fighting myself and then feeling bad for failing.
To get past it I had to go through a time where I completely gave up accomplishing anything but basic Adulting, and learn to be completely okay with that. “I went to work. I paid my bills. It’s totally okay if that’s all I accomplish this week. Anything else is extra.” During this time I got really annoyed at anyone pushing productivity techniques because it was actively harmful to me.
It was only once I totally accepted low level functioning that I was able to add more on. Everything I do today, I do with an acceptance of being low level functioning, even though in practice I manage to generally not be.
I like this framing, and have had thought about framing it in similar ways. I am glad to see someone else make a similar abstraction.
I also want to highlight that there are potentially significant negative consequences of using this kind of motivation in the long run, and that I am still confused about the tradeoff of what I would usually call “internal violence” and “urge propagation” (though those are both confusing terms, and I would not want them to become the default for the things I am pointing at). The thing you describe feels fairly internally violent to me.
Thanks for the response!
Can you expand what you mean by internal violence? If it means what I intuitively read it as, then it hasn’t been my felt experience (though there’s always the possibility that it’s occurring and I’m not recognizing it, and if so I’d like to know)
From the inside, it feels like setting up my life so that it’s natural to act. I sometimes do fall short, but I don’t beat myself up about it because I feel like I put in the appropriate effort. I don’t blame myself if I get sick and can’t do something, or forget something on a one-off (particularly if I figure out why I forgot and make actions to change it.)
Rationality/CFAR instrumental techniques such as urge propagation or TAPs or whatnot never worked for me. They felt like fighting myself and then feeling bad for failing.
To get past it I had to go through a time where I completely gave up accomplishing anything but basic Adulting, and learn to be completely okay with that. “I went to work. I paid my bills. It’s totally okay if that’s all I accomplish this week. Anything else is extra.” During this time I got really annoyed at anyone pushing productivity techniques because it was actively harmful to me.
It was only once I totally accepted low level functioning that I was able to add more on. Everything I do today, I do with an acceptance of being low level functioning, even though in practice I manage to generally not be.