“Know Thyself” (gnothi seauton) was the first of three Greek aphorisms inscribed in the forecourt of the Oracle at Delphi.
Ever heard the term “sense of agency” before? I listen to podcasts when I’m driving alone, and one of them mentioned the term recently, in relation to designing computer games. In this context, it’s described as “the degree to which people attribute their circumstances and the outcomes they experience to being within their own control,” …
(In part 1, I talked about discovering a few weeks ago that there’s a name for the differences between myself and others, High-Functioning Autism, referred to as HFA from here on. This part focuses on my reactions to that discovery.) I’m still trying to make sense of my life in light of this new information. …
When I was in my late twenties, I ran across a checklist for depression. I was shocked to discover that I had nearly every symptom listed on it, and had for more than twenty years. I got treatment for it and discovered that life was nowhere near as difficult, painful, and pointless as it had …
If you’ve been following the Know Thyself entries in recent months, you’ll know that I’ve had trouble pursuing my goals in the last few years. Thanks to a few articles on StevePavlina.com, I’d tracked the problem down to a lack of purpose and context, but I didn’t know how to move forward from there. Trying …
A few months ago, I thought I’d found the answer to my motivation problems. A tweak to my purpose, thought I, and all would be well. As usual, things weren’t that simple… it helped, but after the initial surge of enthusiasm wore off, I discovered that it didn’t make enough difference to keep me moving. …
Continue reading ‘Know Thyself: Goals, Context, and Purpose’ »
This week, after more than six years of effort, I finally solved what seems to be the last theoretical problem to Project X. I have the entire high-level design now. Parts of it may still need some tweaks, but the whole thing hangs together remarkably well. It’s both a lot simpler overall, and a lot …
This is the third follow-up to my my previous entry on self-knowledge and motivation. The entire series can be found here. I’ve finally figured out the problem that I’ve been having with motivation for working on Project X. It’s really pretty simple, and I don’t know why I didn’t realize it before. I’ve taken some …
This is the second follow-up to my previous entry on self-knowledge and motivation. In the last article I talked about habit, and how I was able to establish some useful habits that let me overcome my urge to sleep all the time. Near the end, I noted that I wasn’t able to establish a habit …
This is the first of several planned follow-ups to my previous entry on self-knowledge. As mentioned there, in the last year or so I haven’t had much reason to get out of bed in the morning. Literally — I was in bed until nearly noon most days, despite having gone to bed between midnight and …
For the past several years, I’ve been trying to design and write a very ambitious programming project (referred to here as Project X). But even though I find the project fascinating and intellectually stimulating, recently I’ve found that I’ve had less and less drive to actually work on it. Last week, I saw another Ford …