There are different mental states that feel different. Those are relatively obvious. For instance, being angry or drunk or frustrated or besotted.
Then—for me at least—there are different mental states that don’t immediately feel like anything, but where in acting I notice that my behavior is different, or different things feel easy or impossible. For example:
If I’m in a lot of pain or distress alone, I might feel like I couldn’t compose myself. But in fact if company shows up, it becomes natural to pull myself together.
If there’s a time limit, I will often find a vast well of motivation that was otherwise non-existent. The day before a deadline I will smoothly (if with a lot of effort) do ten times as much as on a normal day.
On some days at least, if it’s 8pm, things will become possible that I could only have dreamed of at 11am.
Riding my bike to the station, then taking it on the subway, then riding it again to get to a party seems like not a big deal with a friend, but like a prohibitive ordeal on my own.
Some of these are very important! For instance, in causing myself to get ten times as much work done sometimes, or to travel to places, or to not despair if things seem impossible at 11am.
But how many more shifts like this do I never notice because I don’t probe the range of relevant behavior in every possible circumstance? If different humans have similar mental architectures in this regard, can I get a list of the common ones somewhere?
Doing something you have never done before seems very hard until you do it.
When you have an idea and you think you will remember it, you probably won't
When you are tired, you naturally think you need to rest for hours when 20min is generally enough.
When you are picking up a habit, not doing the thing once seems like no big deal, but it decreases a lot the probability you will pick it up again the next day. Not doing the thing two days in a row is basically the same as giving up but doesn't feel like it.
Spaced repetition (like anki) to learn something you don't care about seems useless every time I do it, except it works.
When people say nice things to you, you like them more even when you know they are motivated by something or you think you don't care, especially after repetition. Something something Pavlov.
I'm not sure all of these exactly apply to what you describe, but this is what I got from the top of my head.
There are different mental states that feel different. Those are relatively obvious. For instance, being angry or drunk or frustrated or besotted.
Then—for me at least—there are different mental states that don’t immediately feel like anything, but where in acting I notice that my behavior is different, or different things feel easy or impossible. For example:
If I’m in a lot of pain or distress alone, I might feel like I couldn’t compose myself. But in fact if company shows up, it becomes natural to pull myself together.
If there’s a time limit, I will often find a vast well of motivation that was otherwise non-existent. The day before a deadline I will smoothly (if with a lot of effort) do ten times as much as on a normal day.
On some days at least, if it’s 8pm, things will become possible that I could only have dreamed of at 11am.
Riding my bike to the station, then taking it on the subway, then riding it again to get to a party seems like not a big deal with a friend, but like a prohibitive ordeal on my own.
Some of these are very important! For instance, in causing myself to get ten times as much work done sometimes, or to travel to places, or to not despair if things seem impossible at 11am.
But how many more shifts like this do I never notice because I don’t probe the range of relevant behavior in every possible circumstance? If different humans have similar mental architectures in this regard, can I get a list of the common ones somewhere?