4 ms·

I think that's just moving the definitions around. The traditional understanding of the word "motivation" is "the desire to do something". Discipline, in contra

I think that's just moving the definitions around. The traditional understanding of the word "motivation" is "the desire to do something". Discipline, in contrast, is doing something regardless of desire. So you can move the definitions around, but at the end of the day; there are still situations where people succumb to doing or not doing something based on emotion, and the decision to do it regardless of desire is still discipline.

lo_zamoyski 4y ago
I am increasingly convinced that procrastination and lack of focus are rooted in character flaws and bad habits, and as a result, that they are amenable to reform. If we look at, shall we say, the traditional definitions of perseverance, effeminacy, and delicacy[0], we find that someone who perseveres is someone who "does not forsake a good on account of long endurance of difficulties and toils". Effeminacy is the inability to undertake what is not pleasurable, whereas delicacy is the inability to endure displeasure ("properly speaking effeminacy regards lack of pleasures, while delicacy regards the cause that hinders pleasure, for instance toil or the like"). We "moderns" are certainly a soft people. We cannot help but indulge ourselves, we cannot bear what we do not like, and we refuse to embrace the yoke. We are slaves to our appetites and desires. FOMO, which is opportunism, and a culture of instant gratification, are the result and the encouragement of the inability to forsake lower goods for the sake of higher goods, and so we undergo dissipation. And what is dissipation but a lack of focus? And what is the procrastinator avoiding if not discomfort, if not displeasure? Naturally, this becomes the default mode of operation when life is perceived to have no end. If there is no highest pleasure, no highest good, then all we have left are lower pleasures. Perhaps paradoxically, even the lower pleasures lose their proper flavor and become denatured in the absence of the highest. Thus despair is consummated. [0] https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3138.htm https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3138.htm
- kortex 4y ago
  > Effeminacy is the inability to undertake what is not pleasurable, whereas delicacy is the inability to endure displeasure Wow. Not only is that whole site preachy an woo-tacular, that definition is sexist AF. There are not many experiences more displeasurable and uncomfortable than carrying a fetus for 9 months and going into labor. To say nothing of monthly hardship for decades on end.
  - jstarfish 4y ago
    There's also the brain fog and forgetfulness, and the fact that their bones are literally being eroded for calcium in order to develop new skeletal structures, making everything that much more painful over time. Women put up with a lot of shit. A domestic violence victim will endure such treatment for years and may ultimately end up dead for it. The same sort of men behind that will open fire on random civilians in a crowded shopping mall just because their ego was threatened.
crosen99 4y ago
You’re saying that if you do something you otherwise don’t want to do because you have the discipline, then you are not doing what you ultimately desired. Then why are you doing it at all? The only thing that directs you to “be disciplined” is the desire for what the disciplined behavior will bring you. You can call it moving definitions around, but at the end of the day if we don’t ultimately do what we ultimately desire, then what really is meant by the word desire?
- johnchristopher 4y ago
  > The only thing that directs you to “be disciplined” is the desire for what the disciplined behavior will bring you. Which just proves that motivation is not enough. You need discipline. Is the word discipline the problem ? Would regularity feels better ? > You can call it moving definitions around, but at the end of the day if we don’t ultimately do what we ultimately desire, then what really is meant by the word desire? That's not a counter argument, that's now playing with the definition of desire.

lo_zamoyski 4y ago

I am increasingly convinced that procrastination and lack of focus are rooted in character flaws and bad habits, and as a result, that they are amenable to reform. If we look at, shall we say, the traditional definitions of perseverance, effeminacy, and delicacy[0], we find that someone who perseveres is someone who "does not forsake a good on account of long endurance of difficulties and toils". Effeminacy is the inability to undertake what is not pleasurable, whereas delicacy is the inability to endure displeasure ("properly speaking effeminacy regards lack of pleasures, while delicacy regards the cause that hinders pleasure, for instance toil or the like"). We "moderns" are certainly a soft people. We cannot help but indulge ourselves, we cannot bear what we do not like, and we refuse to embrace the yoke. We are slaves to our appetites and desires. FOMO, which is opportunism, and a culture of instant gratification, are the result and the encouragement of the inability to forsake lower goods for the sake of higher goods, and so we undergo dissipation. And what is dissipation but a lack of focus? And what is the procrastinator avoiding if not discomfort, if not displeasure? Naturally, this becomes the default mode of operation when life is perceived to have no end. If there is no highest pleasure, no highest good, then all we have left are lower pleasures. Perhaps paradoxically, even the lower pleasures lose their proper flavor and become denatured in the absence of the highest. Thus despair is consummated. [0] https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3138.htm https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3138.htm

kortex 4y ago
> Effeminacy is the inability to undertake what is not pleasurable, whereas delicacy is the inability to endure displeasure Wow. Not only is that whole site preachy an woo-tacular, that definition is sexist AF. There are not many experiences more displeasurable and uncomfortable than carrying a fetus for 9 months and going into labor. To say nothing of monthly hardship for decades on end.
- jstarfish 4y ago
  There's also the brain fog and forgetfulness, and the fact that their bones are literally being eroded for calcium in order to develop new skeletal structures, making everything that much more painful over time. Women put up with a lot of shit. A domestic violence victim will endure such treatment for years and may ultimately end up dead for it. The same sort of men behind that will open fire on random civilians in a crowded shopping mall just because their ego was threatened.

crosen99 4y ago

You’re saying that if you do something you otherwise don’t want to do because you have the discipline, then you are not doing what you ultimately desired. Then why are you doing it at all? The only thing that directs you to “be disciplined” is the desire for what the disciplined behavior will bring you. You can call it moving definitions around, but at the end of the day if we don’t ultimately do what we ultimately desire, then what really is meant by the word desire?

johnchristopher 4y ago
> The only thing that directs you to “be disciplined” is the desire for what the disciplined behavior will bring you. Which just proves that motivation is not enough. You need discipline. Is the word discipline the problem ? Would regularity feels better ? > You can call it moving definitions around, but at the end of the day if we don’t ultimately do what we ultimately desire, then what really is meant by the word desire? That's not a counter argument, that's now playing with the definition of desire.