The beautiful pleasure of being exhausted by what you love

"Everything kills you eventually; it's better to be killed by something you love."

Charles Bukowski

Remember the feeling when you are sitting in a class in which you have no interest and, 10 minutes into the class, you are yawning, exhausted, and sleepy without any exertion!

On the other hand, you are working on a project that you deeply care about; you work 10 hours flat, you have not had any food, you have not socialised, but still, you are energised; you don't want to sleep, the vision keeps you awake; you just want to keep at it; you feel like you can go on forever, physically and mentally and hours seem like seconds.

Similar things are observed in most things we do. When you talk to your loved one, you can talk for hours on end and it feels like minutes have gone by, but when you are talking to someone at work, 10 minutes start to feel like forever, and you are conscious of every passing minute.

How much exertion you feel is quite a function of how deep the meaning/purpose you find in what you are doing, not the time and effort you put in.

It sounds really counterintuitive and not in accordance with the basic laws of energy dynamics, but that just shows us the non-linear way our minds work and our little understanding of it.

I will venture out to say that,

It is one of the most beautiful things to experience being exhausted (if possible) and to be doing something you love and are deeply passionate about.

About something that you have infinite energy to work with even after working a lot, seemingly unsurmountable obstacles, and your very human limitations.

Despite all this, meaning brings joy.

That's a beauty just by concept.

"A man who has why can bear any how."

- Friedrich Nietzsche

You work on projects that you find deep meaning and purpose in; you can almost bear any circumstance or obstacle, and you would go further than you would on a project assigned to you working on obligation, sometimes to the extent of personal oblivion, like the scientists who gave their lives in exploration, innovation, and inventions.

Notes and further thoughts:

1.  "If the work doesn’t require creativity, delegate it, automate it, or leave it."

- Naval R.

Ideally, with technological advancement, we would aim for humans to be just doing what they want to be doing, being able to automate everything else. With the diversity of humans, we will be able to fill unique roles with people who love what they do, which would optimise and accelerate human development at a larger level. (into higher-level civilizations)

2.  Subjective perception of time versus absolute time

When you are bored, time feels like it moves slowly, and when you are engaged, time feels like it flies.

Experiments since 1900 on the perception of time, early on related to the internal clock, for example:

A professor of chronobiology in Munich, Till Roenneberg, was one of the people who worked on the experiment in the 1960s.

3.  Reducing the rate of perceived effort with purpose,

For example, the last miles of a marathon feel less effortful when done with a friend and talking than when done alone.

Empirical evidence as recorded in the book.

Ref: Endure, Alex Hutchinson, HarperCollins, February 7, 2018

4. Anecdotal Reference:

The author observes that the people finishing long-term ultra projects like the FKTs of the Pacific Coast Trail and others are religious, and that in times of greatest difficulty, the belief that their suffering has a greater purpose than oneself keeps them going.

Ref: The Pursuit of Endurance: Harnessing the Record-Breaking Power of Strength and Resilience, Jennifer Pharr Davis, Viking, April 10, 2018