Originally I felt happy about these, because “mostly agreeing” is an unusually positive outcome for that opening. But these discussions are grueling. It is hard to express kindness and curiosity towards someone yelling at you for a position you explicitly disclaimed. Any one of these stories would be a success but en masse they amount to a huge tax on saying anything about veganism, which is already quite labor intensive.

The discussions could still be worth it if it changed the arguer’s mind, or at least how they approached the next argument. But I don’t get the sense that’s what happens. Neither of us have changed our minds about anything, and I think they’re just as likely to start a similar fight the next week.

May I ask what your motivation was when you decided to spend your time on the aforementioned discussions? Were you hoping to learn something or to persuade the other, or both?

It sounds to me as though the solution here is to be more cautious before spending time arguing. Sometimes (often) it is IMO wiser to cut your losses and stop replying.

What have you tried?

In my experience, meditation works wonders to improve focus. Some people might recommend exercise as a way to improve energy. (Meditation and exercise also takes time, of course.)

Hm. This might be a valid point. Thanks. 

Hm. This might be a valid point. Thanks.

Huh. This is an interesting read. Your mind seems to work in a very different way than mine.

Have you read The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes? I have not read the whole thing, but I have read summaries of it, and your description reminds me of it. :)

Do you do painful things with no reward in the near future? 

For example, do you exercise even if you don't want to? (Here I am assuming that you hate exercise like I do. If you enjoy exercise, this question is not really relevant.)

Do you refrain from eating tasty but unhealthy food?

If so, how do you motivate yourself?

Thanks for the links. I will look at those.

You seem to be one of the relatively few people who have some understanding of my problem.

Demotivation is only a problem when it comes to tasks that I do not want to do - typically because there is a great delay between the action and the reward. It is easy to motivate myself to eat breakfast because it is an easy task with a swift reward. It is much harder to motivate myself to exercise, for example, because it is a painful task with no reward in the near future.

"I" control my choices in a sense, but this "I" is deterministic. 

And I am not making any particular distinction between small and large events. Suppose I am hesitating over whether or not to eat a piece of cake. One part of me wants the cake; another part of me wants to skip the cake for the sake of my future health. 

The part of me that wants the cake will use this argument: "Eat the cake. In the end, it's predetermined whether you're going to eat the cake or not. So you might as well take the path of least resistance. Why struggle and go through hardship? You'll always end up doing the one and only thing you can do anyway. If you ingest more sugar than what would be optimal, then it's because you were always predetermined to ingest that sugar. Do what feels nice."

I find this hard to refute.

In the end, it comes down to being able to train yourself to purposefully pick and choose the aspects of life you choose to judge with fierce rationality and the aspects in which you allow a little leeway... or maybe just tweaking your definition of rationality as a whole to maximize long-term happiness.

Can you say something about how you did this?

A practical exercise I like is asking "If I had to bring myself to face the most 'makes me feel bad about myself' cause of my demotivation, what would it be?".

Could you please explain that again? This sounds like it could be useful, but I don't completely understand it.