5) Individuals have different neurochemistry set points for their brains' reward circuits. This relates more to what people would want and not want to do [because they find it rewarding] than what they technically could learn or in the vernacular "do to grow their skills".
5b) It could be said that the mind lives in the environment of the brain and (4) applies here as well to some degree because of neuroplasticity. It will however take very many years of practicing [something one does not want to do if the reward is not there] to change the neuronal pathways that is the brain's environment.
Example for E/I scale (dopamine vs acetylcholine): The average American reads 0.8 books per year. It's even less than that because some 95% of the books are read by 5% of the people. Reading is highly Pareto. This is because most people fall in the middle of their respective dopamine and acetylcholine reward circuits and because there are alternatives to reading in their form of conversation or watching TV or TikTok. Reading requires a trained imagination or a trained ability to understand abstract concepts that is beyond what is immediately experienced---the immediate experience is but words on a page, so the the frontal cortex needs to be working in order to get more out of reading than just looking at sequential words. The experience of reading is something that happens in the frontal cortex and so it is only appreciated if activating the acetylcholine network is experienced as rewarding. If it is, that person will want to read more. If it isn't then reading becomes a chore. It is likely that such a person would only read because they have to, e.g. assigned homework in school or reports at the job.
From the perspective of the average person, reading is an 'extreme environment'. The world is not full of bookstores or libraries. We do not have a bookstore on every street like we have a bar or a cafe.
Lets flip that around. An extreme introvert (like myself, I'm somewhere in the 95%+ percentile) will likely have a very rewarding acetylcholine network but a rather non-rewarding dopamine network. When extroverts engage with others, their dopamine network will constantly reward them, whereas my dopamine network will not reward me for the conversation. Since people generally talk about things that don't require imagination or abstraction ("So how was your day today?") I don't get rewarded by my acetylcholine network either. As such, for me, conversation with others becomes a chore. I'll do the minimum I have to do to get the job done, but I'll never practice it well enough to become adept at it.
"Personal growth/challenge" are often presented as one-dimensional unequivocal goods, but it's more nuanced than that. It's pertinent to ask what kind of growth and what's the cost. In the above, you want to ask yourself whether you want to prioritize "growing" your reading-muscles or "growing" your conversational-muscles. It's clear that different people will be rewarded differently depending on what choice they make. Also see, https://paulgraham.com/nerds.html in which Graham explains "why nerds don't just figure out how to become more popular if they're so smart. Answer: They'd rather focus on becoming [even] smarter instead (and that's why they so smart in the first place)).
The value of a good follows an s-curve. It would be debilitating not to be able to read at all and so even if someone does not find the process rewarding, it would be best if they practiced enough. As such the average person practices enough to be able to read at a 6th grade level, but only 10% of people can easily read college level books outside their field of training. Likewise, it would be debilitating to be so socially stunted as to not be able to participate in a meeting or ask for directions. However, it may not be worth it to practice conversation to the point of being able to strike up a conversation with any stranger one comes across. That's maybe for the top 10% as well.
Lets consider the difference between dopamine and serotonin. Dopamine is the (immediate) fast-reward circuit. If yours is responsive, you enjoy exploring situations with a lot of stimuli, adapting to new situations and people. If yours is not responsive, all that stimuli is but a bunch of noise. Conversely, the serotonin network is the slow-reward circuit. A high level of serotonin increases the "stability" of thought (and emotion) allowing the mind the ability to stay with an idea or plan for an extended time without losing it due to disruption from new stimuli. (Serotonin reduces the typical tendency to "monkey brain".) Conversely, average serotonin levels and responses makes it difficult to stay consistent on long-term plans or think through complicated strategies without losing the train of thought and so the person derives less value from such concepts or ways of thought. When you put an average person in an environment where sticking with a plan without getting run over by dopamine impulses---say you give them a windfall of money they'd have to make and follow plans for---they'd rather get that shit out of their brain space ASAP either by hiring a financial planner, giving the money away, or blowing it at the fastest rate they know. Could the average human "grow as a person" and learn to make 30-year plans for their personal financial environment. Yes, technically they can but it's the same kind of struggle for them that makes it difficult for the average person to not eat an extra piece of cake when its right in front of them. In that regard, should people "adapt" to longer "trains of thought?" It would benefit them in a way that would allow them to deal with bigger and more complex arrangements in their own life, but it would also come at a cost and perhaps the price is not worth it. "Good enough" will do.
Returning to the environment, a crucial factor is that most people actually don't know themselves very well. The typical person often has a very situational understanding of themself confusing themself for their environment. They're Kegan3 and so see themselves as their social group sees them. For example, in the US practically everybody is told that extroversion is "fun and outgoing" and introversion is "shy and timid". (People are told opposite stories in e.g. Finland.) If an introvert grows up in such an environment, the environment WILL drag them towards a higher skill level of connecting to other people. They might even get quite good at it. Maybe they make a living selling used cars; then wonder why they're always so tired after work or needing a stiff drink to relax. Such a person would, without knowing it, be much happier (more rewarded) by working as a bookkeeper. Now imagine (if you got the acetylcholine and serotonin to stay with the image
) the opposite of an extrovert growing up in a family of bookkeepers and being told to of the high importance of going to college and get a good career as a financial analyst or a surgeon. Having "average neural settings" unlike their more extreme parents or schoolmasters, the child spends the first 20 years of their life training to sit still and read boring books but they do it and they become good enough at it. After work, they often feel like "going out" and blowing off steam in a club dancing the night away. Such a person would likely be much happier in a people-oriented lifestyle once they've "grown" the people skills they didn't learn growing up.With sufficient self-understanding, people will find their "stoke" once they've identified their reward circuits AND shed whatever environmental constraints or "growing up personality baggage" of patterns they thought everybody ought to have but really don't. As such, part of liberating oneself from the machine certainly involves and requires a big dose of self-discovery. It's a lot easier to get stoked from your internal reward circuits than it is to get stoked by some external idea of conviction of what you think stoke should be ... insofar it's not internally compatible.
