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Getting past a plateau is often about finding an "insight" that makes practice feel "new". The old repetition of practice becomes robotic and therefore non-deliberate. No matter how much you practice you don't improve b/c from the POV of your brain you're doing the same thing.

Often times difficulty or scarcity of resources is the push required. E.g. with exercise or creativity. (This might explain why the "jock" stereotype is usually considered dumb. Adding on additional weight is formulaic vs finding the equivalent mental leap.)

Though if you believe that "The sculpture is already complete within the marble block .... I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.”. then perhaps this sandstorm that chisels away and reveals is also a useful step.

That would make "porn" the equivalent of a rapid exploration of passions. It's a way of quickly "becoming". (as long as addiction to distraction is avoided.)

Another way to say it is that "porn" (hustle, dopamine, sexual, etc...) is virtuous only as a way of figuring out what *doesn't* turn you on. It pulls the contrast slider on your life all the way to the right, creating an ugly picture but teasing out subtlety.

The trouble starts when something that *shouldn't* turn you on does so because it's overly "pornified" by artificially jacking up its attractiveness. By this definition, money would be the most pornographic thing.

Most interactions mediated by money don't feel very good b/c by definition they cannot be things that are done just for their own sake. Money "lubricates", allowing an experience that would otherwise not be possible. A mini "rape" of the present moment, forcing it be what u want.