I like the thought behind this. You’ve hit on something I think is important for being productive: if thinking about the alternative makes you want to punch through a wall, that’s great, and you should try to make yourself feel that way. I do a similar thing, but more toward general goal-accomplishment; if I have an objective in sight that I’m heavily attracted to, I identify every possible obstacle to the end (essentially murphyjitsu’ing), and then I cultivate a driving, vengeful rage toward each specific obstacle, on top of what motivation I already had toward the end goal. It works reasonably well for most things, but is by far the most effective on pure internal tasks like editing out cognitive biases or undesired beliefs, because raw motivation is just a much more absolute determinant of success in that domain. Learning is a mostly mental task, so this seems like a very strong application of the general principle to me.
On your question of how to respond to pointless suffering, though, I don’t think your response would work for me at all. I’d just snap back, “well, what does it matter at that point?!”. I think I actually prefer a Buddhist-ish angle on the issue, directly calling out the pointlessness of suffering per se (I’m nonreligious and agnostic myself, for the record). To paraphrase a quote I got from a friend of mine, “one who can accept anything never suffers”. Pain is unavoidable, but perspective enables you to remain happy while in pain, by keeping whatever is not lost at the front of your mind. In your hypothetical scenario, I think I’d frame it something like, “Have your reasons for joy be ones that can never be taken from you.” Does that ring right?
I like the thought behind this. You’ve hit on something I think is important for being productive: if thinking about the alternative makes you want to punch through a wall, that’s great, and you should try to make yourself feel that way. I do a similar thing, but more toward general goal-accomplishment; if I have an objective in sight that I’m heavily attracted to, I identify every possible obstacle to the end (essentially murphyjitsu’ing), and then I cultivate a driving, vengeful rage toward each specific obstacle, on top of what motivation I already had toward the end goal. It works reasonably well for most things, but is by far the most effective on pure internal tasks like editing out cognitive biases or undesired beliefs, because raw motivation is just a much more absolute determinant of success in that domain. Learning is a mostly mental task, so this seems like a very strong application of the general principle to me.
On your question of how to respond to pointless suffering, though, I don’t think your response would work for me at all. I’d just snap back, “well, what does it matter at that point?!”. I think I actually prefer a Buddhist-ish angle on the issue, directly calling out the pointlessness of suffering per se (I’m nonreligious and agnostic myself, for the record). To paraphrase a quote I got from a friend of mine, “one who can accept anything never suffers”. Pain is unavoidable, but perspective enables you to remain happy while in pain, by keeping whatever is not lost at the front of your mind. In your hypothetical scenario, I think I’d frame it something like, “Have your reasons for joy be ones that can never be taken from you.” Does that ring right?