I am a maximum-security ex-con who studied and used logic for pro se, civil-rights lawsuits. (The importance of being a maximum-security ex-con is that I was stubborn iconoclast who learned and used logic in all seriousness.) Logic helped me identify the weak links in my opponent's arguments and to avoid weak links in my own arguments, and logic helped my organize my writing and evidence. I also studied and learned to use “The Option Process” for eliminating my negative emotions and to understand other people's negative emotions. The core truth of “The Option Process” is that we choose to have negative emotions for reasons, not randomly, and not even necessarily. So, our rationality is very much a part of our emotions, and, as such, good reasoning can utterly remove negative emotions at the core of their raison d'être. However, some of my emotional and intellectual challenges have resisted solutions via logic and “The Option Process.” For example, I could not figure out how to stay objective and to behave objectively while trying to gamble for profit (not for fun). So, I began reading widely about self-control, discipline, integrity, neuroeconomics, etc. And, in the process, I found this LessWrong website.

I have only recently identified what may be at the root of my problem with gambling and why it resists both logic and “The Option Process.” Freud called it “childhood megalomania.” In our early years, whenever we cried and sniveled, the universe of Mom and Dad and others rushed to our needs. That inner baby rarely grows up well in any of us, and we still whine, snivel, and howl at the universe when things don't go our way, and we can get down right obstinate about doing so until the universe listens! The universe, in turn, responds favorably often enough to keep our inner babies convinced of our magic, temper-tantrum powers over reality.

I figured out that when I get frustrated, afraid, and challenged by the difficulties of gambling, I would rather feel safe, powerful and warm, and so I often lapse into an obstinate insistence on continuing to gamble because I want to believe and feel that I can successfully gamble whenever I want, even during objectively bad, fear-inducing, and frustrating conditions.

The universe has not been kind in that regard, but with my recent insight, I at least hope that my inner baby has grown one year older. The rest of the problem, the frustration and fear, will easily fall prey to the power of logic and “The Option Process.”