there's an essay online to the effect of ~"the natural state of being is motion" arguing against a sort of, idk, folk extension/generalization of spoon theory outside of the domain of disability? (I'm probably remembering it badly, and iirc the author didn't mention disability or specifically reference spoon theory — it was more about the concept of "ego depletion" which may or may not be a real phenomena)

might have been Rao / Ribbonfarm

basically saying that: some people have gotten the idea that any time they're doing something other than rest, they're taking mental damage and/or burning mental resources

(noting here that this is extremely literally true for some people — that's very nearly the definition of post-exertional malaise syndrome)

and arguing that that isn't really how humans work — that humans are creatures of activity, with rest being one of many activities humans engage in, as opposed to a privileged/primordial neutral state.

& that the idea that doing anything/everything other than rest is somehow expensive in "ego/will/focus points" type mental resources, with rest recharging those points basically turns into a self-exacerbating spiral thing

(b/c what the brain actually does is adjust the level of stimulation to match the level of activity? and resting puts your brain into "rest & conserve" mode while doing shit keeps your brain in "keep doing shit" mode)

wonder if this was where I encountered the idea that what healthy adults do is transition smoothly from task to task, continuously, all day every day

(as opposed to resting & needing to re-prime the engine between each thing)

idk what I make of this. the general vibe feels mostly true, at least in terms of describing "neurotypical" behavior — certainly it does a better job modeling other people's behavior than the "doing things is stressful, draining, and impossible" thing I apparently believe about myself

but it also feels like maybe this is one of those moments where the advice to e. g. adhd folks of "don't try to imitate the organization strategies of very organized people; those people don't have adhd, and their strategies depend on that. instead, try to learn from other adhd ppl who are coping a little better than you" applies

like, maybe there *is* some critical mental resource shortage (motivation? reward anticipation? self-efficacy?) that I'm bottlenecked behind. maybe in the general "healthy" case, people are overflowing with whatever that is, to the point where maybe they don't even recognize that it exists b/c they never encounter a lack of it as a constraint

idk where I was going with this