2022/1/3 Some people are able to use their life in a way that satisfies them utterly. Having a dream career and the relationships that make them feel their best. While this doesn't make them happy by itself, the self determination that is involved is a good indicator. You don't need to be super successful to have self determination. More importantly though, you don't need to be happy to have a nice time. I learned a lot from stupid games. I found that the drive to succeed within the rules of the game took on its own significance. That the frustration of failing many many times while learning how to build a useless skill was not heeded while the focus was on completing the dictated objective. If I were to take stock of my state of being while playing an arcade button masher style computer game, I wouldn't say I felt good, at least not before completing my objective. In the midst of the action, before I succeed I just feel frustrated by having to try over and over again. That does not make me feel happy but it also doesn't make me turn away. I feel engaged because I have a goal and I'm working on it. I am able to do what I think will help me to succeed and I feel slightly good for a moment when I do succeed but not what I would say, looking back, good enough to justify the many minutes of frustration beforehand or the time wasted in pursuing the contrived goal. The thing is, the engagement itself is its own reward. It isn't happiness, but it is a sort of satisfaction. I do my best these days to avoid doing things that don't have a real payoff. If the prize is a half second sound an a burst of color than I figure I can get that directly without any work. There are things that do give a nice payoff, such as a good story to work though and intellectually challenging puzzles that have interesting solutions, but outside of games there are many things that have much more of a payoff as well as things that are similarly as meaningless as the chime of aligning some objects in a row from many popular games. When I do put effort into something, I assess what I will get out of it and I use what I've learned to help me decide if it's worth it.