Transcription
If you're aimless and goals goalless, then you can't elicit any positive emotion. And if your goals are fragmented, which is also what happens if you're aimless or your goals lack unity, if your goals are fragmented, then no given behavioral manifestation can elicit any dopaminergic reward, because it's not a step forward to anything desirable. And so there's no positive emotion, and so you can't learn well.
According to your account, I didn't know that. See, I didn't know that when you put yourself in a state of apprehension in relationship to a valued goal, that your neuroplasticity improves and you can learn better. That's very, very cool.
We tell people that when they sit down to write an essay, that's the first, the most important thing you have to do: you have to have a question in mind that you regard finding the answer to as worthwhile; otherwise, the whole exercise is a lie. So even if you're assigned a topic, you have to find something within the topic that grips you, and then the writing exercise is going to be gripping because you're grappling with a real mystery.