Something I’ve been pondering about is the fact that we need stressors to be impactful enough for a system to adapt. Stressors can be painful and perhaps that’s what’s required to prompt a costly adaption, but as a result there should also be a positive feeling. I think you kind of notice that with sport – that buzz after sport, the endorphins released after exertion bringing us delight, knowing we’ve stressed the body but it was a good stress. We’re better off afterwards. Something that we might want to do again (and again).
I then thought about paradigm shifts. And hacking! Paradigms are these models that we use all the time to aid our understanding, and people often hold on dearly to some paradigms because they don’t want or need to change their outlook on the world. Again it would be upsetting and hurtful to remove such paradigms. But how could we hack a paradigm, and how could it have a positive after feeling after that hacking?
Humour?
Is humour, irony, joking … and the resulting laughter basically the human (natural) response to a paradigm being broken, but with an enjoyable outcome (so that the updated paradigm sticks or and the neurological system is updated!)