Month 8 - Therapy's A Lovely Start

Last month, when I noted that tracking and commitments tend to sap my motivation, I told myself I wouldn't write about mahjong during this update. See if that helped. So, no mahjong this month! But lots of thinking.

Last time I theorized that I react poorly to goals, and that my default state was improvement.

But I think this is only true to a point.

I will self-improve, yes, but not all the way to 100%. Only up to like, 80%. My base desire is "become competent," not "become the best." And I am certainly competent at mahjong. I grow satisfied when I hit a point of diminishing returns.

I've been looking into ACT, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. My first session with an actual therapist is next month, but in the meantime I've been self-directedly working on it, as I do. It reminds me of Daoism, which is pleasing.

First, quick definitions I'll be using. A "value" is a "direction you follow, even when paying a cost." A "suffering" is "something internal that prevents you from following that direction." Past traumas, phobias, anxiety, whatever, the source doesn't matter, the history doesn't matter, all that matters is that it affects you in the present. This might not be how therapists term these things, but they're what I'll mean from here on.

Okay, so. I have a lot of sources of suffering. Tedium is a common one. That's what prevents me from doing things like flashcards. Not conforming is another. That's what prevents me from doing things I view as socially unacceptable, or going places I feel I don't belong. Self-criticism. Being an inconvenience is a tricky one. I don't like making people wait, or work around me, etc, but it could also be viewed from the other end as a value.

The biggest, most pervasive suffering for me is that of showing myself in transitional states. That's kind of broad, but it distills a bunch of things into one label.

One manifestation is incompetence: I will practice alone until I am confident, and only then show myself. I'm nearly N2 in Japanese and haven't spoken to anyone, I wouldn't get up and dance with someone if I didn't have training, and so on. I only want to present a finished version of myself.

Another is being an outsider: Joining a community, a FFXIV guild, a group class, in all those situations there's a transition period where I am no longer a strict outsider but am not yet an insider. I'm okay being an outsider. I like being an insider. I hate being in the middle.

You can imagine how this prevents me from doing a whole lot of things.

What does ACT do to solve the suffering? Nothing. You cultivate willingness towards it. You accept it, rather than struggling against it. And you continue to live in accordance with your values regardless.

Let's turn to the positive side, my values. I am fairly confident about five.

1. Curiosity. This is the biggest one. Puzzles, problem solving, discovery. This is what truly drives my self-improvement. I want to figure out how to do the thing better. Get more DPS in an MMO, figure out when to call tiles in mahjong, discover how to play that music piece, understand the difference between は and が. This is, in my opinion, the core of who I am.
2. Being Helpful. This one is probably obvious to anyone who knows me. I answered like ten thousand questions in the Uma Musume server, made the ref doc for people, and so on. If I see someone ask a question in world chat in a game, I'll answer. The cost I pay is, of course, my time.
3. Loyalty. To specific entities, in particular. For example, Sita Vilosa, who I've used as an avatar almost everywhere for the past 10+ years. Or Mejiro Dober, who I used in every PvP event from her release until I quit. Or stubbornly using Amber in Genshin Impact. No real cost to using Sita as my avatar, but the others come at the cost of in-game performance. And we'll come back to Sita in a bit, she's a surprise tool who will help us later.
4. Femininity. Similar to the above, when given the ability in a game, I will only use female characters. Again, at the cost of performance, and missed experiences. I can also briefly overcome fears in service of it. I can bear the embarrassment of going into a lingerie store for cute underwear, I can talk to a stranger to ask for that clothing displayed in the window, and so on.
5. Belonging. Even after my interest in something wanes, belonging can keep me going. Uma Musume is the clear example again. After I'd wrung out all the discovery from the game and playing it became tedious, I kept playing, because I liked the #character-building crowd, and it was my connection with them. Once that shattered and we moved to an independent server, Uma wasn't needed, and I dropped it soon after. So the cost I pay for belonging is the willingness to suffer tedium and such.

I also think I value competence to some level, but it's hard to say if that's really true, or if it's just my curiosity manifesting. Did I improve my prose because I wanted to be a better writer, or because I was curious if I could? There's also the question of whether not inconveniencing other people is linked to a value, a manifestation of being helpful, the root of both, or a fear of being inconvenient. Probably a fear. But the five above are enough for now.

Also note that the values are directions, not goals, and not rules. "I value finishing what I start" is a rule.

Now let's return to my issue with goal-setting. We've established that my core is curiosity. I do my self-directed discovery, and I get pretty far, but not all the way. Then I decide I want a goal. Say, passing N2 for Japanese. Now what's left? Vocab lists, mainly, and a lot of flashcards. The discovery is gone. It's a plan, I need to follow it, it's tedious, it's not fun, I quit Japanese.

I'm writing a story. Having fun thinking about how the characters get from their starting points to getting together. Coming up with ideas and writing them out. But then the story needs to end at some point. So I come up with an ending, and I work out how to get there. Now all that's left is writing to it... along the path I've already discovered... so there's scarce amounts of curiosity left, and it again becomes tedium.

Setting goals, especially detailed ones, removes the curiosity I thrive in. That's likely closer to the true reason why I struggle with them, though I'm sure removing the intrinsic motivation is also a portion.

So. Sufferings and values. Be willing to experience the sufferings in order to live according to the values. The final piece (that I'll talk about here) is defusing yourself from the thoughts. Instead of thinking, "I'm anxious," thinking "I'm having the thought that I'm anxious." Observing the thought.

The values point me in some direction. And that direction passes directly through the suffering. If I'm unwilling to experience the suffering, if I avoid it, I will not progress in that direction. And there are things I want, that I value, on the other side of that suffering.

If we look at my five values... How the heck do I turn any of these into driving forces?

Let's start with the fun one. Sita Vilosa.

About a week ago, I decided to search for copies of the Sword Girls (Sita's game) novels. And I found them. Five novels, featuring Sita, written in Korean, for $7 USD (plus international shipping and handling). They're on the way as I write this.

What I'm trying to say here is that I'm learning Korean so I can read the novels that feature a character I like from a game I played on Facebook over a decade ago. And when I run into the tedium of flashcards, I'll need to accept it, living in accordance with my value of loyalty towards Sita.

"I'm having the thought that flashcards are boring, and I'm doing 50 of them."

(this is still, in my opinion, better than my reason for learning Japanese)

Some of these are hard right now. Which of these values can I use to bring me to finishing a story? Fractal discoveries, perhaps. Loyalty to the story? How about riichi? The curiosity of what the next hand will hold?

Belonging already props things up. Joining a writing community? But there are a lot of fears, stronger than tedium, in the way of that. The fear of not yet being an insider, the fear of showing my in-progress prose skill, the fear of showing my in-progress work. I've still got some therapy work to do before I can take steps like that.

I'm only a few days in. Some of this might be incorrect. My understanding will increase a lot over the next month, I'm sure. Excited to see where it takes me.