Been lurking since LW launched. First time posting. Hi guys.
This article is interesting and relevant to me, because I regularly experience distinct de-motivation and lack of willpower, which I believe is the result of blood sugar regulation issues. I wonder how much variation in motivation and productivity in life is caused by inadequate handling of one’s personal biochemistry. I know I can be productive as hell one day, and completely unable to focus the next.
Huh. You know, in many ways I think there are several fictional stand-bys that serve a somewhat similar function for me. One of them is Star Trek. I watched Star Trek TNG with my parents when I was younger, it was a weekly ritual. As an adult, I can recognize that it really isn’t very good TV: the acting was often poor, the writing poorer, and don’t even get me started on the technobabble. But it has a comfortableness to it that I find soothing in times of stress. LoTR, also. I do not think LoTR is great fiction. Tolkien was not a great writer. But it like to read it. It is a comfortable story, and has been with me for most of the years I could read.
I think its interesting that perhaps atheists and rationalists can find some of the spirituality we are allegedly so bereft of in the pages (or fast-moving frames) of an acknowledged fictional work. I would not be surprised if this has come up before on LW, but I must have missed it if it has.
EDIT: I also wonder if part of the difficulty in leaving religion is leaving the comfortable stories. To be taught for your entire life that the stories are true, and then realize that they might be false… to acknowledge such a realization might horribly taint the stories in ones mind. Humans seem to be very storytelling oriented, and it may be more powerful than we imagine, to reject ones storytelling tradition.