WHAT I WANT

I guess I need to start this by saying this is an I speaking. An I, an ego I mean. It does not matter how you, yes, you, may understand the notion of I, whether you believe the ego is a philosophical construct or an undeniable reality, whether I am an illusion or a personalized entity created by the power of The Almighty. I exist. I am. I will always, henceforward, assume that I exist as this independent, self-conscious I. The whole discussion about the (non) existence of the ego has no place here. This needed to be clarified first.

These are, clearly, words of an egoist. An egoist is not that man who, foolishly, ‘believes’, ie, has faith, in himself. Like, say, a Muslim has faith in Allah. No, that one would be an egotist. A worshipper of his own self. An egoist simply:

a) assumes he himself exists as a separate entity from all the others

b) has his own person as his main, his fundamental concern on this world

This does not imply either worshipping of one’s self or exclusion of all consideration for others.

No, because I perfectly realize I exist in a world which I have to share with others, willing or not. These others, most perfect strangers to me, are not only sources of hindrance, of limitation to my wishes. They may as well be the means for the fulfillment of such wishes. Reason tells me insistently I need them right where they are. And most of the times, just as they are.

Now, it’s not necessarily easy to deal with these others, and I’m not talking about difficulty in comprehension, as language is a natural barrier between me and most of them. No, I’m talking about the uncomfortable perception of not being doing exactly what I want that comes all too often to my mind. This perception brings me to the realization of my imperfections, of my limitations. The others limit my will, limit my life, they are a limitation to the free, boundless exertion of my will. An all too immature I can easily come to the conclusion that he needs to get rid of all these others in order to exercise his all too immature will. Not taking into account the role the others play in shaping/exercising one’s will. This immature I is the natural victim of nihilism. He easily concludes nothing is worthwhile in a world where, apparently, you can do almost nothing you really want.

But as I don’t need either inclement constraint or soul-crushing nihilism, I need be more practical in ascertaining my will amongst these billions of other wills that seem to block mine in every possible direction.

Reason is a tool for the strong-minded, but it can easily become a burden for the weak-willed. It is perpetually pointing out our limitations, our weaknesses, our frailty in an all too unstable world which only accidentally permits our existence in it. I need reason for a lot of things, but whenever it only becomes a burden, a hindrance, invariably leading to pessimistic, nihilistic conclusions about my “fate”, I need to either

a) get rid of reason altogether or

b) teach it who is the real master of whom

Yes, a good thing I learned is reason is a tool, an instrument, a thing that can be almost entirely subject to my volition. It's not an entity per se, a thing with a will of its own. So whenever I find my own reason telling me things which serve only to diminish, to limit or to annihilate my will, I need to 'recalibrate' the tool, so that it can work properly again.

What reason, proper reason, tells me then is that in most situations there are hindrances objecting the complete fulfillment of my desires. It tells me that I cannot eat all I want, or that the woman I desire is not "mine for the taking". It tells me I cannot choose a country where to live, as my money limitations wouldn't allow it. It tells me the people in my neighbourhood are more powerful than I am, as they are many and I'm only one, so that if they choose to do something with me, lynch me for instance, they can do it, but if I choose to do something with them, kill all of them for instance, I could hardly even try.

But then, proper reason will not leave me drowning in desolate despair thinking of how impotent an individual being is in this world of billions. Quite on the contrary. It will bring to my mind the old adage- Know thyself-, of which an important part is to know your own limitations, and know when to take advantage of them, and also when to take advantage of your neighbor's limitations. I'm more than aware, as people repeat this to me all the time, of what I cannot do. What matters to me, however, is what I can do. Moreover, what part of what I can do corresponds exactly to what I really want.

Because, say, if I am part of a multitude who does something that my individual self would condemn, theoretically, I could say I did that for a reason stronger than me, such as peer pressure. However, if the achieved result was something that I really wanted (the overthrown of a government), I will not cynically say I would regret my participation in the act later. The same rationale can be applied in a plethora of cases where, apparently, the individual will is entirely absent, or at least subdue. I am not a crazy man, a person whose will is so confused he cannot give full account of his acts. No, I know most things I do, except when I'm asleep, of course. My self-consciousness works in such a way that, having self-mastery as a perpetual aim, I can hardly, if ever, say I take part in anything I don't want to, so that if someone finds me killing someone, they can never say I did that ONLY for reasons independent of my will. I don't resort to this excuse. External motives can be a thing, of course. Not the only thing. For unless I go insane some day, you will never find me killing anyone I would not willingly get rid of, for whatever reason.

Here we are walking a path where that aforementioned discussion (does the I exist or not) is seen through a light in which one has a strong reason to answer that, yes, there's some firm foundation to state the existence of the individual self. For I am consciously affirming no act of mine, no act I practice knowingly, is 100% motivated by forces outside my will. There is at least a shred of self-consciousness, of personal will, in every single act of mine. This  thing I call my own will- what I actually want. Of course, you could say, there's a rational explanation for this perception of mine that I act voluntarily and also a good chain of cause and effect that, through my not understanding it perfectly, accounts for my illusory belief I have a will of my own (when all things are determined, etc). For all practical purposes, however, it matters little whether at the bottom of things, there's s predetermined cause for my every action. As far as I am aware of what I am doing, and as far as what I do corresponds to what I think or believe it's the best thing for me to do, there's no difference wheter my every act is determined or I have free will to a greater or a lesser degree.  

The important, the really importang thing is this- awareness of what I do and of what I want. The old debate (determinism x free will) is just another one of those endless discussions that never lead anywhere. Eager to prove that their side is the true one, the first of the two opposing parties may say that even my wants, my wishes, are determined by forces outside my control. Once again, an useless assessment. Because, for instance, I know what food is and I know I need food for my nourishment. There's absolutely no shred of absurdity in my saying I want to eat this or that, knowing it will be good for my health, and that I eat it for my own volition. You will enter the realm of the absurd if you oppose me by saying: oh you don't know what forces really cause you to eat that, that's something beyond your control. The ultimate causes of our actions, of course, may escape me permanently. The practical reasons I eat, however, are clear as water to me. Nothing misterious at all about that. You have to spend years uselessly discussing about determinism, karma, and things like that to come to the obvious conclusion that you should simply stop and, humbly enough, give some credit to the evidence of your most primitive senses.

So, having let it clear I have absolutely no further use for determinism, or whatever philosophical ideal related to it, I will henceforward talk about my will as something to be taken for granted. Obviously it could be just a very succesfull illusion of my senses that makes me believe I have a will of my own. The illusion works for all practical purposes, though, and I see no reason to reject it, powerful as it is.

My will, what I want, is and will always be limited by a number of things, something which might prove very underwhelming sometimes, but which should not serve as an easy excuse for me to indulge in self-pity or something like that. The oh me! attitude of one who says he can do nothing he wants in this life doesn't fit me anymore. My intention is to examine the real boundaries of my will, to know exactly what are its limitations, and how to do things which will guarantee me the most possible exertion of my will, ie, to avoid situations in life, under my control, in which I will go from self-sufficient individual to conscious automaton. The ideal thing, of course, would be to be entirely conscious of everything I do, in every moment, and, most especially, to be fully satisfied for being doing exactly what I am doing every given moment. This perfect scenario seems to be reserved for our dreams only. I have a stomach to fill, bills to pay, certain, uh, urges, to satisfy, I can't simply live life floating among clouds.

Like everything else, the free exertion of my will depends on the extent of my power. My mind is at its easiest when I realize I'm doing things according to my desires, and it would be easy to become a spoiled child sometimes, not willing anything that may cause me the slightest unpleasantness. Reason tells me, however, that it's not really positive for me to be spoiled, since my will grows stronger when it finds some obstacle to be trespassed, and since I only learn the limitations of my power by having it limited by other power, other forces. One would be eager to believe that I want more power, as much power as possible, only to exercise my volition arbitrarily, like a stubborn dictator who refuses to even listen a 'no' from whomever is subjected to him. It's not like things work for me. For a spoiled child, a finicky dictator, is an easy target for either dislike or hate, which is a sure source of unpleasantness in the long run (a dictator's life is never secured). I don't want my will to be taken from me abruptly, like it can happen in either case.

So much for arbitrariness.

Both my will and my power are subject to myself, as my reason itself, and it's this latter that serves as a tool for keeping the two first under control. It's reason that tells me I want this or that thing, it's reason that tells me I have some power, not all power in the world, but surely enough power to get all I need in this life, power enough to live today knowing I'm getting everything I want and need. Reason naturally prevents me from wishing anything unbridled, as I'd easily lose control of myself in wanting or having too much of a good thing. And reason ascertains that my power is a power of and for today, the present day, I don't live in the past, I don't live in the future, I don't exist as a possibility, I am right now, and if I'm taking the freedom to write this it's because, presently, my material conditions allow me to do so. I am a creature of the present. I live in the now.

But, one could ask, you first talked about bad things in the long run and now you say you live for the moment. How can there be a long run for you? When I say I don't live in the future I don't intend to say there isn't a high probability that tomorrow will come after today. I meant that I make no plans, I postpone nothing that I can do right now for a future day that may or may not come. But the future may come. I'm 40 now, one day I may be 50. I don't want to even conceive the idea of being alive at the age of 50 having my will entirely taken away from me. Call it simply precaution if you will. A dictator, as I said, can have his power taken from him at any given moment, he's never really sure of himself, so he lives the life of a paranoid. I don't want this life for me, not in the now, not ever. I want my life secured for this day and, if tomorrow comes, secured for tomorrow. This doesn't change the fact that I live for today, that only today matters, even because, when tomorrow comes, it's a new today.

We always think of a dictator or of a spoiled child when we think of a person fully exercising their will. But I would say both are irrational, the child for obvious reasons (immaturity, etc), the dictator for taking the idea of having power to its utmost consequences, not willing to consider the drawbacks of power. Both lack reason, which can lead us to feel all the positive sides of what the child and the despot feel without the undesirable side effects. But reason is a tool, as I said, and we can as well feel pleasure in abandoning it altogether, falling into the hands of some passion all too irrational, and doing that willingly, just to ascertain that we are more powerful, as an I, than reason itself. The good thing for me, however, is to always be in control, both of reason and of unreason, I want to use both things to counterbalance each other. I cannot do that either as a child or as a despot, because both fall prey  to their own feelings, and for me feelings exist to be used and explored, never to be my masters.

Even leaving aside immaturity, pig-headed dictators, etc, I realize there's a lot of things I can actually do in this world without being constrained to do this or that and without feeling I'm becoming a slave of my desires. I realize an effort I have to make- to try and limit the occasions to be conditioned to do so and so, the situations in which I will be forced to act this or that way, so that such occasions become so few I hardly take notice of them. I need the utmost degree of awareness I can get in this life. And I need it now- not in a hypothetical tomorrow. For instance, I'm writing this right now with 100% certainty of what I'm doing and of what I'm trying to say. Nobody is asking me or forcing me to do this. I'm only taking advantage of a present situation (to have a computer, to be in a place which allows concentration, etc), using it to produce a written expression of my ideas. I will never say that I did this, that I wrote this text, under constraint, that I was not 100% aware of what I was doing. This would be a blatant lie. It's this kind of awareness I'm speaking of, the kind that doesn't allow you to have any doubt in proudly proclaiming you know what you are doing.

Needless to say, I need my own kind of discipline. Not for the future where I'll be older, more experienced, etc, but for this right moment, I need some discipline to exercise my will right now. I do not take others into account, it's not fear of them, its fear for me that leads me to want this discipline. I know quite well that a man is, before anything else, an animal. I am an animal too. I know my instincts, I know I can fall prey to them. Again, not hypothetically, as the animal in me is all too real. I can easily picture myself acting in a way to make my rational self cringe for days. But as I'm easily embarassed, my discipline serves exactly to point me situations in which I would be ashamed of myself, or would be willing to do things that would be a source of mental torture later.

What I like about this world of today, so maligned by so many on the internet, is that it allows me a kind of solitude that would be unthinkable in times past. As there are little to no social obligations for a man nowadays he can't avoid, contrary to what happened in the past, and I can actually choose whatever occasion to socialize I may want in life, if I want any. Also, what I like about my (financial) situation of today is that I can live a life of my own, satisfy all my basic needs, and enjoy a lot of leisure time doing precisely what I want (or nothing at all). This would not be possible if I lived in a time where the life of a man was determined by warfare. So, I'm not an ungrateful youth anymore in two senses, both physically, as I turned 40, and emotionally, for I will not spend my days complaining how great things were in the past or how great they would be "if only..." I accept life as it is right now, both for the world and for me. I am an egoist. The world has a lot for me right now, I don't spend my time complaining about it, as it's highly counterproductive.

This is coming to an end.

I am glad for being able, today, to proudly ascertain I am an egoist, to boldly declare I only care for others as long as they are useful to me in some way, as in other times I would feel constrained to feign a social or religious commitment totally alien to my will. I recognize the existence of others and I realize their existence is a natural limitation to myself that is quite desirable, since, without that, unbridled will would soon lead me to exhaustion. I want to feel satisfied, I want a satisfactory life, I don't want to go to bed every night lamenting another wasted day. Also, I don't want to feel I acted today exactly as I didn't want to, ie, I don't want to be constrained, to act compulsorily, at least not 99% of the time. And reason tells me I get to behave exactly as I want, I manage to have exactly what I want and need, I somehow came to the point where everything is decently balanced- I don't have too much, I don't have too little, I don't act arbitrarily, I'm not a clown following the masses. In other words, I don't feel ashamed of myself and don't spend half my time blaming myself for being incapable, for acting as a coward, etc. As things were not always so, I fear they may not be so forever, but this fear doesn't dominate me, as my concentration on the present moment prevents me from indulging in too much conjecture.

So, if you asked me what I want, I would give you an answer that would be contrary to what 99% of the ever-dissatisfied crowd on the internet would have to tell you, and would sardonically say:

What I want is exactly what I have right now.

By Maxx (Homo liber).