The Primitives

[peterbirks]

We humans are primitive beings really. Probably 99% of what we do is in some way hard-wired back to neolithic days or earlier. What would surprise a truly alien visitor to this small rather irrelevant planet would not be how different humanity is from the rest of the animal kingdom, but how similar we are. I mean, suppose they were sentient beings, but moved on a really slow personal timescale. We would move around too fast for them to be able to see us, and they would probably spend several decades attempting to communicate with the plants.

But, I digress. As I said, we are simple things, and one of the aspects most hard-wired into us is the concept of "reward". We do unpleasant things because we see the prospect of a pleasant thing as the end result of doing those unpleasant things. That could be something as simple as sitting at home watching your baby grow up. Or, even simpler, the prospect of getting blind-laggingly drunk on a Friday night.

Indeed, one of the difficulties of giving up drinking (or, so I am told, heroin) is that your life was built around this latter short-term work/reward dichotomy. By removing one of the pillars (the drinking/reward part), you lost any motive for the former.

My trouble at the moment is not that I don't have "reward" concepts in mind, but that the reward is so mind-bogglingly long term that it's easy to lose sight of it. There is a big shift from "if I do this, I can get drunk tonight" to "if I do this, that is one fraction towards a life of leisure in 10 years' time".

Of course, that I can think in those terms at all is in itself mind-bogglingly amazing. Most of the population have to work because they have already spent that money and are now paying off the debt (and the interest). Not so much delayed gratification or instant gratification, as gratification in advance.

Comments

A good distraction from the decorating

[geoffchall.livejournal.com]

Hmm. These are very dark waters to be swimming in. It's almost as if you are leaning towards intellectual excuses for drinking, which is a bit strange. I think society has become distinctly fucked-up in terms of self-gratification, which I naturally put down to Thatcherism. In truth I think Thatcherism to begin with, was a celebration and a consequence of changes in society. It did go on to magnify those trends, but I think Thatcher was elected because her policies appealed to those who wished to get what they want, rather than was for either the collective good or the long-term individual good.

Where I see your thinking as flawed is in seeing 'getting drunk tonight' as a positive outcome of the drinking. There are some positive aspects to being a little tipsy - it gives one greater social confidence and some of the nicest social occasions that I've had have been when I've had enough booze but not too much. For me these days, this means having between 3 and 5 glasses of wine.

Drink less and there are usually soft drinks whose taste/thirstquenchingness I'd prefer. Drink more and you embark on the down-slope that leads to (a) being a drunken bore who is talking bollocks and (b) having an increased chance of hangovers or other physical consequences.

The difficulty is in being rational about it. The first 2-3 drinks are fine and that 3rd glass makes my life better. So does the 4th. But the difficulty is that the decision to have a 5th and etc glasses is being made less rationally and is based on the state of mind after 4 glasses where the brain says "hey that was good I'll do it again". It takes iron self-control to override this and think "further alcohol will impede me from having as good a time". And if you have that control, then you aren't getting the advantages you were seeking in the first places.

A genuine Catch-22. God I hate people who use that as a label to mean someone with two difficult choices

[simonbillenness.livejournal.com]

Now that I'm the wrong side of 40, I'm still finding plenty of moments when I'm surprised, excited and impressed.

Maybe this is a side benefit of my recently diagnosed (mildly) bipolar nature. During "up" periods, I enjoy boosted energy and a keen excitement about people, places and pleasures. It's as if the world switched from black and white to vibrant color. Everything has more depth, texture and possibility. You gotta love serotonin.

Of course, when I'm down, little is interesting or exciting.

Back to the subject of deferred gratification, I have a marked puritan tendency. I can count on one hand the number of times I've gotten sick drunk: twice in college, once in grad school. I've never even tried any illegal drug aside from a (literal) puff or two of pot. I'm also remain stingy and debt-free.

Maybe I get more excited about buying a car because I (happily) don't have one.

The Waitabits

[(Anonymous)]

"I mean, suppose they were sentient beings, but moved on a really slow personal timescale."

For a dramatization of this, see Eric Frank Russell's short story, "The Waitabits" (1955).

On the rest of your piece, well, I also find it hard to work towards long-term goals. I suppose most people do. We like that instant grat, whatever it happens to be.

Oddly, although I like drinking, I don't like getting seriously drunk, and it doesn't normally happen to me, except occasionally at parties, where there may be nothing much to do for hours except drink. In all other situations, there comes a point where I feel I've had enough, and I stop.

-- Jonathan

Goals

[(Anonymous)]

I wonder what the limit players think of this thread? Here you are, mostly discussing poker and then you throw in something like this and the gamers are all over it. I've done watching my babies grow up, and very pleasant it was to, but I've got a real problem with goals now. I'm working for? the distant prospect of getting out of Germany for a highly uncertain future in Britain? no wonder I find it hard to get up. Best I can come up with is the prospect of the girls finishing Uni and moving on to life, but pleasant as the prospect is, it's not exactly something to motivate yourself with. You've got me thinking now, probably not a good thing. I can't even try to persuade myself that the alcohol line would be a good one, you've completely disproved that. John W