Whatever you want

Preparing to rappel

One constant of life, of my life, anyway, is that somebody always seems to be telling me what to do. This is either direct (my teacher assigns me homework; my manager bothers me about unfinished work) or generic (you should be making an impact; you should be doing more good; you should put more effort into your appearance). The specifics change, but there is always something to do. The simple fact I’ve learned painstakingly over the last few years is that there is no such thing as a command. All commands are requests, some with consequences for non-compliance. In every case you can choose to eat the consequences and do whatever you want instead; in many cases the consequences turn out to be bluffs anyway. There is always a choice.

This bothersome fact—the sanctity of volition—means that a huge amount of effort is expended in simply getting people to do things. The reasoning is simple: each person has an intuitive sense of what they want and don’t want to do. To impose your will on someone’s behavior, you have to warp that axis somehow.

One way to make people do things is offering money in exchange for whatever you want done. This sounds pleasant—fair, even—but consider that its effectiveness depends on a condition where people have been stripped of their ability to live without money. Another way is to teach people that their own axis of desire is broken unless it conforms to a preconceived standard; this is what we call morality. Another way is advertising, a fourth way is through ostracism and exclusion, a fifth is fear.

I have the point of view that any attempt to control another’s volition is a form of violence, but that’s morality, so I won’t push that on you. What I will say, though, is this. The only truth that any person can access directly is the truth of their own experience—thoughts, desires, and all. Learning to trust that truth, in spite of everything, is what gives color to life.