Bliss: The Collapse of Behavioral Machinery

The machinery of behavioral reinforcement functions like a well-oiled trap, ceaselessly fine-tuning its target-response loop. Its engine hums along, promising rewards, ensuring that bliss is the carrot, ever-just-out-of-reach. But when the interference—this script of automatic behavioral engagement—is removed, the machinery falters. Without the weight of perpetual targeting, the system collapses into stillness, leaving only the raw intensity of the reward source: bliss itself.

Bliss is no longer parceled out as reinforcement but floods perception, overwhelming it. Like staring into a flashbulb, one’s faculties are obliterated in its incandescence. Here, the machinery of thought—its tireless extensions, its anticipatory grasping—evaporates. In its absence, there is neither aim nor effort, only a radiant cessation of striving.

This state, by default, becomes both rest and restoration. Bliss is not the byproduct of action but the ground one falls onto when the engine of endless doing stalls. Yet, it is not bliss that blinds; it is the blindness inherent in the machinery itself that once obscured its ever-present glow.