Pavlovian cycle
By: Sheldon Cooper
Tags: Cycle, Patterns, Purpose, Life

Image by Olivia Fields

You do the hard thing but do you do the hard thing again?

— Somewhere in the 1890s, a Russian scientist, Ivan Pavlov, exposed dogs to the sound of a ticking metronome. When the rhythm hit, food would be given.

Pavlov noted that dogs began to salivate after hearing the metronome after a couple of trials.

The study suggested that dogs, and even humans, can be engineered (or “conditioned” in this case) to react to (odd) patterns and procedures. The dog associated the sound of a bell (the neutral stimulus) to food (the now biologically potent stimulus). At one point, even if there was no food presented, the dogs would salivate and drool in response to the metronome sound.

So how does this relate to the human condition? Or better yet, the thesis of this post? Well, in junior year of high school, I was discouraged by my teachers and counsellors to take advanced level Economics and Biology but I took it anyways because I believed I could take on the challenge. I though I was competent and capable and had the grit that no student they saw could.

Turns out, I was wrong and boldly wrong. Within 3 months, I realised I did not love Biology the same way I used to. I didn’t even see the point because I didn’t want to pursue medicine or any science fields at that point but I worked hard in the class. Depending on my mood, I would hammer out the Biology questions early and get frustrated on why it’s taking so long. Other times I would do the problem sets at the very last minute flustered with pain and agony as a result of my inflammable pride.

But in the end, it worked out. I received above average grades. Since it worked out, should I choose the harder route again? Should I be determined to make it work again?

In other words: Have I unintentionally engineered myself to respond to hard academic routes (i.e. the neutral stimulus) as a signal to take it and drool all over the rewarding challenges that comes with taking harder courses (i.e. the now biologically potent stimulus)?

I find myself at this crux time and time again. It is now my first semester as a freshman at university deciding my second semester courses. I took a computer science course for Year 2 students but dropped it because I was deeply afraid of failing. I was no longer as ambitious as my high school self as a result of the IB trauma.

But as the semester comes to an end and after a solid 3 months of filling my mind with juicy productivity content and mouth-watering books about having grit in the midst of valiant adversity, I *think* I am prepared to want to try again the Pavlovian cycle. But is it worth it?

I mean, is it sensible to sacrifice time and happiness in exchange for cookie-perfect products like good GPAs and good internships in order to get into a better grad school? Should I defer happiness? How much am I willing to sacrifice now for a seemingly-more-promising-and-long-term-fulfilling-future? I am obeying Freud’s laws on man’s greatest pursuit is of pleasure after all.

I complain a lot about not living a well-intentioned life full of meaning or purpose and it seems taking the harder route presents a solution to all my problem, doesn’t it?

And I think all our lives, we grow up to seek comfort and order. We purchase better phones because it feels nicer. We would love to have a toilet that rinses your ass when you take a dump because it’s just better. We set eyes for a such-and-such house because it’s much more comfortable.

When I think back I was gravely afraid of failing an advanced computer science course so I naturally opted out from it because I intrinsically preferred to be comfortable but I realised that while fear was a guide that kept me safe; it tricked me into living a boring life.

Viktor Frankl was a working neurologist studying its intricacies before getting captured in the Holocaust. After surviving and losing his wife to the Nazis, he wrote that misery, though seemingly ridiculous, indicates life itself has the potential of meaning, and therefore pain itself must also have meaning.

“Pain then, if one could have faith in something greater than himself, might be a path to experiencing a meaning beyond the false gratification of personal comfort” (Donald Miller)

People trapped in the concentration camps either likely died from the genocide or suicide. The Nazis were strict to ban people from stopping this but Frankl, as a seasoned psychiatrist, attempted to consult those who were considering brute death as an option. At the crux of it, the prisoners whom he connected with were convinced that in light their grim experiences, they had a role of purpose to continue living for a grander epic.

As Miller poignantly writes: “Suffering, as absurd as it seemed, pointed to a greater story in which, if one would only construe himself as a character within, he could find fulfilment in his tragic role, knowing the plot was heading toward redemption. Such an understanding would take immense humility and immeasurable faith, a perspective perhaps achieved only in the context of near hopelessness.”

I think that while I may be having my last laugh as I attempt the Year 2 Computer Science course again; at least I am living a life well-intentioned with purpose.

I now see patterns that animate the once lifeless formulas I wrote on test papers, like the Pavlovian cycle. A friend briefly expressed her doctoral research in how machine learning and artificial intelligence can be utilised, in some shape or form, to serve clinically diagnosed patients, and I wanted to learn more.