I almost just went to bed for some reading* when I caught it just in time that I had not blogged yet today. A catastrophe it would certainly not have been, but I like to keep the streak alive for now, however trivial the post turns out to be.

It is funny to observe the own mind in caring about such trivial things like streaks, points or badges, in whatever gamified context they appear. Will it rebel eventually, when one part of the brain gets tricked by another part, in this case me trying to consciously exploit some built-in mechanism for motivational gains? Probably not, the automatic "primitive" bits are not aware of context.

Viewing one's own mind not as a single unified entity, but a mess of different motivations, feelings and thoughts, often conflicting ones, can be helpful and generally rings true to me. You can make up a theory of willpower this way, or call out the "internal press sectretary" that tries to weave a flattering story out of the underlying mess, as Simler & Hanson describe in The Elephant in the Brain.

Not very pretty to look at up close, what these brains of ours are up to.

(* still the LessWrong books and a new one on the Viking age, called River Kings.)