Dear Correct:

If your grasp of what you currently can and can't do with pain is so vague that the thought "Perhaps I am bad at torture" can suddenly strike you as a thunderbolt of possible bad news, when that doesn't really say anything at all about what you currently can and can't do with pain, your first step is to replace your concept of "I am good at torture" or "I am bad at torture" with "I currently think I am competent to do the following specific things with torture..."

Then you can start thinking about how to verify whether anything on that list is true, or how to try an experiment about adding a new item to that list.

Dear Correct:

If your grasp of what you currently can and can't do with pain is so vague that the thought "Perhaps I am bad at torture" can suddenly strike you as a thunderbolt of possible bad news, when that doesn't really say anything at all about what you currently can and can't do with pain, your first step is to replace your concept of "I am good at torture" or "I am bad at torture" with "I currently think I am competent to accomplish the following specific ends by inflicting these corresponding kinds of patterned suffering..."

Then you can start thinking about how to verify whether anything on that list is true, or how to try an experiment about adding a new item to that list.

Dear Correct:

If your grasp of what you currently can and can't do with pain is so vague that the thought "Perhaps I am bad at torture" can suddenly strike you as a thunderbolt of possible bad news, when that doesn't really say anything at all about what you currently can and can't do with pain, your first step is to replace your concept of "I am good at torture" or "I am bad at torture" with "I currently think I am competent to accomplish the following specific ends by inflicting these kinds of patterned suffering..."

Then you can start thinking about how to verify whether anything on that list is true, or how to try an experiment about adding a new item to that list.