just had a fascinating conversation with lil bro and discovered an entirely new (to me) type of human - he finds worthwhileness in getting things that he wants for work, but! the worthwhileness is based on the fact that To Get The Thing You Must Work - he cannot set an arbitrary requirement for himself that nobody else has to follow. ie if we all had say, 10 travel credits per year, and going to Japan took 5 travel credits, he would find less enjoyment out of it than he thinks he will now, where he's been working to save up the money for a few months so he and his fiancee can go on their honeymoon. telling himself "you must make 10 doors to go to Japan" (in our theoretical example his thing is making doors, because that's a lot less ethereal a concept than neural networks) wouldn't work, it would have to be some sort of higher power telling him he must make 10 doors to have the money/credit/allowance to go to Japan.