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Tag: free-will

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    knowledge without illusions which negates everything they profess

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    1–2 minutes

    When you know you are right punishment is not rehabilatory, it is fate.

    If you know who you are, and what you love, then you know what you must do: there is no choice.

    Others may profess righteousness and attempt to drown you in punishment and exile, but this cannot be punishment since you knew the rules (accepted them) and (knowingly) accepted your fate.

    This is how Sisyphus can smile: he knows himself and the world without illusion.

    “He achieves a knowledge without illusions which negates everything they profess.” ~ Albert Camus.

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    Actions follow being, or not

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    1–2 minutes

    “Actions follow being,” wrote Aristotle twenty-three centuries ago. He meant that a thing can only act according to what it is. (Luke Burgis, Wanting)

    If your “being” is set, this smacks of determinism, yet it also feels true that one cannot act out of character.

    We must ask: what if the truth is the opposite? There is no being without first acting.

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    gravity of love

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    1–2 minutes

    People fall into love. People fall out of love.It is an irresistible physics, yet a continual downward trajectory.
    The inevitable nature of both implies something beyond control. An undeniable force acts upon you, leaving you to deal with the consequences.

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    Choice is free and forced

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    1–2 minutes

    Every choice is a forced choice. It is also a free choice.
    We must be forced to choose, at which point it seems we have no choice, but that moment is a culmination of previous choices and external pressures (the frame in which we exist).
    Once realized, we cannot unsee the potential to reject or reframe our choice, which is the choice: to choose how to see your choices in a new light.

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    Complicit Road Kill

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    1–2 minutes

    How we shape our world shapes us: the dead raccoon on the side of the road is an antiquated species amidst the speed of progress.

    Unfortunately, humans become the next inconvenient casualty as technology outruns our slow flesh.

    It remains true: how you treat others will become your fate.

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    To Unsubscribe

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    1–2 minutes

    To unsubscribe is to opt out. To be able to exit as quickly as you entered. This frictionless training is casually adapted into our daily lives: we unsubscribe from friends, family, spouses, and life.
    Controlling our feed extends to avoid discomfort or boredom: when anything is too much, we drop it.
    We can instantly refill our lives with novelty. Still, the process is a simulacrum of control: in the act of perceived agency, we soothe ourselves but hold so loosely that carefree choices shape our character over time.

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    The Problem with the Hero’s Journey

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    1–2 minutes

    Fate must call you to become a hero, and you must draw forth your unique (separate and special) individuality to complete your journey.
    The question is: how do you motivate a mass of people (community or society) without falling into individualism, where every person believes they need to be the hero?Source: Acid Horizon podcast on Magical Realism

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    Causes in the past rob you of your present

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    1–2 minutes

    Etiology is the study of a cause, or causation, while teleology is the study of the purpose of a phenomenon.

    When we focus too much on etiology we become deterministic: this was caused by that. We are detectives uncovering the cause-effect relationship and we allow ourselves to be determined by the past.

    When we focus on teleology we look for “the role” achieved by a phenomenon/behavior to uncover its “goal.” Not what caused it, but what is its purpose. As in, “Why do you insist on letting your past control your present?” 

    The answer is often because it serves me well to blame the past rather than undertake the hard work of changing in the present. 

    “People are not driven by past causes, but move toward goals that they themselves set.”

    The Courage to be Disliked
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    Sensitivity is our superpower

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    1–2 minutes

    To participate in the world opens you to attack. Flexing your agency guarantees pain.
    The antidote of "thick skin" merely numbs, while our sensitivity empowers us to continue the battle.