Well, there seems to be a real correlation with happy meat and taste quality, so that this farmer was decisively winning international foie gras taste competitions is probably real evidence that his geese were happier. Personally, I'd much rather be running around like mad worrying about the coming winter than being force fed. And in geese, the worry-based gorging is much more natural than the alternative of force feeding.

If that change continues to accelerate, eventually it will reach a point where it moves beyond the limitations of existing tracking technology. At that point, it becomes purely a force. That force could result in positive impacts, but it could also result in negative ones

This is essentially a restatement of the accelerating change model of a technological singularity. I suspect that most of that model's weak predictions kicked in several decades ago: aside from some very coarse-grained models along the lines of Moore's Law, I don't think we've been capable of making accurate predictions about the decade-scale future since at least the 1970s and arguably well before. If we can expect technological change to continue to accelerate (a proposition dependent on the drivers of technological change, and which I consider likely but not certain), we can expect effective planning horizons in contexts dependent on tech in general to shrink proportionally. (The accelerating change model also offers some stronger predictions, but I'm skeptical of most of them for various reasons, mainly having to do with the misleading definitivism I allude to in the grandparent.)

Very well; the next obvious question is should this worry me? To which I'd answer yes, a little, but not as much as the status quo should. With the arguable exception of weapons, the first-order effects of any new technology are generally positive. It's second-order effects that worry people; in historical perspective, though, the second-order downsides of typical innovations don't appear to have outweighed their first-order benefits. (They're often more famous, but that's just availability bias.) I don't see any obvious reason why this would change under a regime of accelerating innovation; shrinking planning horizons are arguably worrisome given that they provide incentive to ignore long-term downsides, but there are ways around this. If I'm right, broad regulation aimed at slowing overall innovation rates is bound to prevent more beneficial changes than harmful; it's also game-theoretically unstable, as faster-innovating regions gain an advantage over slower-innovating ones.

And the status quo? Well, as environmentalists are fond of pointing out, industrial society is inherently unsustainable. Unfortunately, the solutions they tend to propose are unlikely to be workable in the long run for the same game-theoretic reasons I outline above. Transformative technologies usually don't have that problem.

Yes, in my experience -- which includes observing others -- first world kids who have the luxury of setting high expectations for themselves tend to beat themselves up most when they are in the midst of discovering whether or not they can actually meet those expectations. They do that for a few years and then figure out how hard they're actually capable of working, and at what pace.

I think the self-abuse is just another way of describing what it's like to not know how to intelligently push yourself. You end up pushing yourself too hard before you establish a sustainable rhythm.

you are somewhere around 28-32 and currently feeling very confident/happy with your life navigation in relation to your earlier twenties?

I'm 33. I would call myself only moderately confident and happy, but that in itself is a major improvement on my 20s... when I was floundering around doing the above. I'm still getting better at it all the time. Around 28-29 I passed some kind of competency threshold and got slightly more competent than incompetent, with an attendant drop in pain from self-abuse.

If the majority of your day is spent justifying doing things you find to be annoying, you might want to rethink some of your routines.

Yes. But IME one's early to mid-twenties are for self-flagellation. You essentially become your own parent, and you don't start out good at it. The effect starts to peter out around 28 or so. Ideally you end up with a more precise model of your strengths and weaknesses than you had at 18.

Makes me wonder about the average age of the "optimization culture" on LW and its associated blogs and forums and such.

I’m lucky enough to have been born with the sort of brain that keeps my overall mood on an even keel, no matter how many annoying things I force myself to do.

From my understanding of emotional ranges I would say this statement places too much importance on a biological type. There are definitely people who are born with chemical imbalances that result in fluctuating, diminished, or exaggerated emotional ranges, but for the majority, it is more accurate to say that emotional response habitually and cognitively shaped. I would suggest that this statement is more accurate of your situation:

I like analyzing myself, and so most of my basic emotions are accompanied by thoughts about those emotions, and I suspect that this process of deliberate analysis causes the actual emotions to be less intense.

You have developed a belief system that has led to a pattern of habituation that dampens and redirects your emotional outputs.

Strong belief in rational/other ideology -> pursuing certain actions -> overtime actions become habitualized-> actions develop new cognitive and emotional responses that result in dampening and redirecting strong emotional output.

I would suggest that when you are faced with situations that contradict your ideological base it questions the entire system. You are a cognitively gifted person, so if you encounter one of these situations your mind goes into overdrive reanalyzing all previous evaluations. The result is all the "little annoying things that you have forced yourself to do" over the past months lose their rationale causing a huge flood of negative/doubtful emotions. I have experienced this myself, in my mind I think of it as the over thinkers equivalent of anger management issues.

People who have anger management do not know how to deal with little things that make them mad. Their anger is improperly managed and slowly builds up into a giant torrent of emotions, until the time comes when they explode.

My advice would be a better balance between growth and fortification. Growth comes from pushing yourself to reach new limits; however, if you do not give yourself a break every now and then it is dangerous. Fortification is dealing with the immediate protection of happiness and stability. The majority is excessive in their fortifications and lacks an impetus for growth. You are the minority in your incredibly strong impetus for growth. Just tone it down sometimes. If you like something sometimes you need to do it regardless of rationale. If you don’t like something, sometimes you need a break from it, regardless of rationale. If the majority of your day is spent justifying doing things you find to be annoying, you might want to rethink some of your routines.

Best of luck.

This article relies much too strongly on personal anecdote. This seems to be an ongoing problem with many of your articles, Swimmer.

I would personally prefer to see this in Discussion. Your personal story is interesting (and I recognize some of it in myself), but I don't think the personal background (plus your brief request for recommended literature, plan for Part II, etc.) is a sufficiently fleshed out idea at this point given that you aren't yet at the point of offering any guidance on solving the problem. Of course, Part II's literature review/recommendations may be of more benefit to the community and be a better fit for Main.