Do you wish you had total control?

Do you wish you had total control of yourself? I don't mean the ability to control external factors such as the weather or how other people act. I mean the kind of discipline so extreme that you could gain total control over your feelings...sounds kinda like reaching a state of Nirvana where you have no desire.

Any time you felt sad or mad or unpleasant...you could just tell yourself 'stop' and you would stop feeling that way.

You could make yourself happy simply by wishing it so.

You could focus and do exactly what you had to do at the time and just as quickly move onto the next task.

The more I think about it, the more robotic this sounds. Yet, robots are far more efficient than people. I guess these are reasons why.

---

I've come to realize in a day there are only so many hours - 24. Then there are only so many hours you are awake - for most people this is probably 16 hours. Then there's only so many hours that are functional, meaning that you can actually devote them to doing productive things. You have to leave time to eat, clean, use the bathroom, etc. Then to shrink that down there are only so many hours where you have the motivation and energy to do what you need to do. After thinning the herd so many times the number of 'true productive hours' is small.

Productive hours = time where you are capable (have the energy and motivation) to be productive

---

I play the piano. I'm not fantastic at it, but I've played long enough that given enough time, I can master most pieces, even ones that are considered pretty difficult. The problem is that we only have limited time. So while I can master a Debussy piece given several months, that's the problem - it takes several months!

I think, in general, people are capable of accomplishing the same things...it's just a matter of RATE! Rate is what makes things feasible. Rate is what makes people not try things at all. I'm probably capable of knitting a sweater, but the fact that I think it'd take me a year to do it is a big enough deterrent to prevent me from ever trying.

So effectively it makes it impossible.

I realize that in reality, people do have innate limitations - be it physically, emotionally, or mentally. Some people, even if they had infinite time, will just not be capable of certain things. I could never give birth to a baby, no matter how long I tried. Maybe some people can't learn Chinese, even if they spent 400 years trying.

Rate is a matter of practicality. I think the Law School Admissions Test, to a certain degree, is something that many people should be able to perform very well on. I know that's a bit of a misstatement because the test is curved so the average score is 150 (scores range from 120-180) but my personal feeling was that if I had unlimited time (or at least a few more hours) I could have gotten close to a perfect score.

Now that I'm in law school I haven't been completely stumped by anything I've come upon. It's not a matter of difficulty, rather it's a matter of volume. "Drinking through a firehose." I feel like I can process all the information - just not at the rate it comes in.

I think RATE is a key component of what we call INTELLIGENCE. People who can process or learn at a faster RATE are more INTELLIGENT.

What do you think?