[Hayarotle]

> I recently came across a term for this. Telic vs. atelic activities [0]. Telic activities are things with some terminal state, e.g. a typical goal-oriented project, or something like the act of getting married.

> Atelic activities are those activities where the continuous process is the goal. Certain types of learning, being a good parent, and so on.

Reading the article, I understand this differently. Telic activities are indeed activities that have a terminal goal. However, the idea of a continuous process being the goal seems orthogonal to the telic/atelic distinction. You can have an activity that is both enjoyable and has a final goal: one can play a video-game both because they want to beat it and because they enjoy playing it. An activity being telic doesn't mean it's not enjoyable by itself. You can also have atelic activities that don't have any goals.

There's no reason, a priori, that making an activity telic should take away from the day-to-day enjoyment. Having a final goal shouldn't stop people from enjoying the journey. It does change the game (from an open-ended sandbox to a more linear game), but it doesn't make it unenjoyable per se. What really takes out the enjoyment of the process is not the introduction of the goal, but rather an excessive optimization toward a goal at the expense of the process.