i call bullshit on willpower. it presupposes that your inherent nature as a human being is selfish and destructive, and requires you to fight against your desires, not try to understand and temper them. we live in a corrupt culture, our hopes and fears and dreams and desires have been twisted and used to turn us into selfish consumers, more concerned with what we own and how people look at us than we are in being free and being true to ourselves. i think if you disentangle yourself from that web of fear and selfishness and figure out what you believe and what makes you happy then willpower becomes not the defining trait of a good man, but a useful peripheral tool.

not that i have any real proof, been an interesting line of thinking though. its hard for me to really believe that life is supposed to be a battle against yourself, if one of the basic tenets of our morality is fighting ourselves, who we have everything in common with, what then does this mean about our relationships to others? history speaks for itself i think.  theres got to be another way to relate to ourselves and our world.

more and more i think it goes back to descartes and the concept of a discrete separate self outside of the rest of the world.  it separates animal desire from logical objectivity and puts the latter on a higher plane as what defines and enlightens us.  so if our essence is not physical but divine, or at least separate, we feel no qualms about dominating and taking ownership of the physical. it makes our bodies tools to secure our own safety and continued existence. it also makes willpower a necessity, so that we can fight off the animal urges that get so twisted and used against us by others better at the game. its all been so entrenched in our culture and basic to our thinking for so long i dont know that anything other than a catastrophic downfall of society could change it.

science is the new religion, and it may bring armageddon yet.