I hope you’ll listen carefully As I lay out the hard truth about my enemy.
He is charming and kind Attractive and affable Good-humored and clever Generous and frugal Intelligent and wise Creative and resourceful Helpful and proactive Responsible and conscientious Diligent and successful in his career A loving and devoted husband and father A man about whom there are many things to love.
That God makes himself vulnerable— That he puts himself out there, available to be abused— Is surely a stumbling block to those Who find exposure a disagreeable policy For their own lives.
There’s really no getting around The fact that you are not listening— Especially since what I’m trying To talk to you about right now is The fact that you are not listening.
This is such a tough principle to navigate! How much should we “stand our ground”, and how much should we simply let people be the people they are, even if it steps on our toes?
I think this is one of the greatest philosophical questions we face as humans, and how we face it says a great deal about what kind of people we are. (And I don’t think I understand it all myself—just that it’s of huge importance.)
In a way, the human will seems to underlie so many of our cognitive processes—and even so, it is not always unified within itself.
I’m going to do my best to keep this short, as I just want to put a couple of thoughts out there without composing the volumes of supporting ideas that should eventually go with it. So here’s my main point: I think that in our complicated selves—somewhere amid that thing—or groups of things—that we sometimes refer to with words such as mind, heart, soul, spirit, or being, there’s an important part that underlies the parts of which we are more often aware. The parts we more commonly “see” in action—that we are more routinely aware of—have to do with mental functions or features like thoughts, words, actions, feelings, plans, decisions, and actions. Though probably none of us are fully aware of all of these things when they happen, most of us are at least generally aware that such things are indeed doing on inside our selves. That underlying part is what I will (today) call “the will”; it’s our set of desires (wants, wishes, inclinations)—and the important feature of it that I’d like to draw attention to in this post is that not all of the desires that reside there are pointing in the same direction; sometimes they are at odds with one another. And when this happens, it can sometimes make us miserable. I’ve lately taken to describing this misery by use of the metaphor of a horse having a burr under its saddle.
My weight as of this morning: 15 March 2023. This is 100 pounds below my all-time high, which was in 2016.
I need to lose 55 pounds to get to 200 pounds, which will be somewhere in the ballpark of a healthy weight for me. And while losing 55 pounds sounds like quite a feat, I am at least encouraged that, as of this morning, I have already lost 100 pounds from my all-time high of 355 (in 2016). It has not been easy, and I expect it to get harder as I go. But for what it’s worth, I do believe I can do it—with help.