Free Will

26 Sep Free Will

A quote and a video (and a chortle) for Hobbes and Schopenhauer

“It goes back to the beginning of our discussion. Aristotle believed, correctly, that courage is the first of the human virtues, because it makes the others possible. Courage begins with the decision to face the ultimate truth about existence: the dirty little secret that we are free. It requires an understanding of free will at the archetypal level — an understanding that we are free to define who we are at every moment. We are not what society and randomness have made us; we are what we have chosen to be from the depth of our being. We are a product of our will. We are self-made in the deepest sense. One of the gravest problems in life is self-limitation: We create defense mechanisms to protect us from the anxiety that comes with freedom. We refuse to fulfill our potential. We live only marginally. This was Freud’s definition of psychoneurosis: We limit how we live so that we can limit the amount of anxiety that we experience. We end up tranquilizing many of life’s functions. We shut down the centers of entrepreneurial and creative thinking; in effect, we halt progress and growth. But no significant decision — personal or organizational — has ever been undertaken without being attended by an existential crisis, or without a commitment to wade through anxiety, uncertainty, and guilt.”

– Peter Koestenbaum

What I thought about when I snorted water through my nose laughing as Saturday Night Live’s Dora (Muraka)  said, “Does Mittens really have free will?”

http://www.hulu.com/watch/1610/saturday-night-live-tv-funhouse-maraka-and-mittens

at about 4:21

Damn funny and inspiring as heck.