- Aristotle's distinction between activities/beings that are an end in themselves vs. activities that end with the achievement of their goals, and the realization that one activity can be both
- Buddhist practice of focusing on the activity of mind
Both address directly what this article does indirectly: the brain's reward system prunes reality and self-expression as necessary to get things done, so often improvement comes only after deconstructing those blinders. And that in turn is super, super difficult, and virtually never happens unless it has to, because someone is traumatized by reward-system-induced failures like addiction, violence, social ostracism, personal shame, etc. In the "best" case, one's compassion for others' suffering sensitizes one to sniff and shun reward-system fast-paths.
It's ALWAYS better to avoid reward-system hysteresis, since it's almost never fixable. And remember, the more capable and well-funded you are, the less the environment will offer any guardrails. It's all on you.