>It's funny how the author frames this post in a very economic way. [...] over-economic thinking.
He's not framing it in an economic way. It's just that the words "pay/paid" are very common conversational shorthand for "effort you have to expend". E.g. when parents often say "you have to _invest_ in your children" -- or -- "if you don't exercise consistent discipline when they're young, you will _pay_ the _price_ when they're older" ... the parents are not being clinical economists.
If you're still sidetracked by "pay/price", the alternative metaphor for the same concept is: Don't buy stuff for the "fantasy self" you're imagining. Instead, you have to be brutally honest in your self-assessment of what you will realistically use.
I.e. Don't buy a stack of cookbooks when you don't really have the motivation to cook. Thinking that the colorful photos of completed dishes will spur you to action is fantasy.
Yes, somebody might still complain that "fantasy self" is wrong because "I would never frame cooking food as a field of speculative fiction genre in literature" ... then I guess we're in a never-ending loop of focusing on the metaphor instead of the underlying message.
He's not framing it in an economic way. It's just that the words "pay/paid" are very common conversational shorthand for "effort you have to expend". E.g. when parents often say "you have to _invest_ in your children" -- or -- "if you don't exercise consistent discipline when they're young, you will _pay_ the _price_ when they're older" ... the parents are not being clinical economists.
If you're still sidetracked by "pay/price", the alternative metaphor for the same concept is: Don't buy stuff for the "fantasy self" you're imagining. Instead, you have to be brutally honest in your self-assessment of what you will realistically use.
I.e. Don't buy a stack of cookbooks when you don't really have the motivation to cook. Thinking that the colorful photos of completed dishes will spur you to action is fantasy.
Yes, somebody might still complain that "fantasy self" is wrong because "I would never frame cooking food as a field of speculative fiction genre in literature" ... then I guess we're in a never-ending loop of focusing on the metaphor instead of the underlying message.