Discomfort is a virtue.

Without discomfort it is not possible to retrain to your insulin system to stop expecting a new infusion of carbohydrates every third waking hour. Without discomfort the body never learns to burn fat for energy. Without discomfort it is impossible to be full of energy without eating and you will not be able to function without eating all the time.

Without discomfort it is not possible to push yourself beyond your current level of endurance. Without discomfort, your vascular system does not improve. Without discomfort it would be impossible to run for hours without stopping.

Without discomfort you don’t get very far. Without the discomfort of blisters and aching knees, it does not eventually become possible to walk 30 miles without a single blister. Without this discomfort you could not walk 30 miles and then play a game of basketball right after. Without discomfort you neeeed a car to get around.

Without discomfort, warm weather becomes a restraint. Without discomfort, your sweat glands do not activate. Your vascular system does not improve and cool you. Without discomfort, you can not function without heating (or air conditioning).

Without discomfort, sharing your room is a challenge that is impossible. Without discomfort, you are never motivated to learn the social skills needed to get along in close quarters. Without discomfort you become a spoiled person that only functions if you have your own room.

Without discomfort, instant gratification is your modus openrandi. Without discomfort, you never learn to wait when it is in your better long term interest. Without discomfort, you may get into debt or get stuck with a lousy deal.

Without discomfort, wants turn into needs and luxuries are treated as necessities. Without discomfort an absolute threshold is never internalized. Without discomfort you will never be able to stop when enough is enough. Without discomfort you will not be able to quit your job.

Without discomfort your comfort becomes your main weakness. Change is uncomfortable and discomfort is necessary for change. Change is possible, but it is never easy and it is never comfortable. If change was easy, it would happen randomly because nobody would resist it.

Originally posted 2009-03-22 18:53:03.

The amount of thinking which occurs mentally is actually very hard to quantify. When I was doing research, I’d typically start out doing “nothing” for several hours—call it “warming up”. Then I’d hack around changing a few things here and there in a code or a manuscript. Maybe I’d suddenly get an idea and code it up in about half an hour. Finally, I’d read papers or try to make a good figure. If I managed to do that much in a day, I considered it a success.

If you’re just looking at what materially got done, it was very little. However, a lot could have changed mentally, though, both consciously but more importantly unconsciously.

It would be interesting indeed if it was possible to glimpse what goes on in other people’s brains beyond what gets reflected by their writing, talking, and actions.

I guess “thinking” is comparable to practicing an instrument except there’s no instrument and no sound. Still, by practicing you get better, and by getting better, you can produce something brilliant in short order when you finally do play.

Practicing is hard. This is why most people prefer not to. It is indeed much easier to “play” what you already know or to repeat what you’ve heard compared to composing your own things.

Much thanks to KC, BR, and Anon for the donations.

Originally posted 2010-09-09 22:45:34.

I am what you could call extremely frugal, but my reasons for being so are not strictly monetary. In fact my investment income alone exceeds my spending by almost 50%100%150% and yet I see no reason to become less frugal and increase my spending. My long term goal is to reduce my spending even further.

My primary reason for being frugal is part ethical and part about resilience and preparation. The ethical part is somewhat summarized by Buddhist economics, where the main principle is to minimize suffering. Thus, I will, for example, spend a lot of effort finding a way to get rid of things I no longer need in a way that minimizes overall suffering and benefits someone else instead of just throwing them in the trash. The resilient part is just a question of risk tolerance and a feeling of control. Being frugal makes it much easier to weather financial storms. For example, the Great Recession didn’t result in any changes in our household because it is on the whole not very dependent on the economy with its jobs and supermarkets.

Actually, I would consider frugality to be a subset of a “home economical skill set”. In modern times, most people need to purchase a solution to all their needs/wants and thus they are highly dependent on having a job to earn the money and shops and services where they can go on and spend it. All home-skills have effectively been out-sourced. Yet, homes used to be quite independent units. It’s no more than 100 years ago that buying groceries from someone else was considered quite unusual. Most people made things for themselves instead of buying them.

You could also say it’s about being who I am. I like to think of myself as adaptive, competent, and self-reliant. Spending money is in many (but not all) ways the exact opposite of these character traits. To put it more accurately, these particular traits/skills allow you to spend very little money to satisfy your needs/wants and I get some—well a lot of—enjoyment out of saying “I made that” rather than “I bought that”.

Thus I don’t consider frugality a means to an end but rather an end in itself. This also means that frugality is not a sacrifice. It is a way of life. It is what makes me happy and it is what feels right to me.

Originally posted 2011-06-30 13:45:33.