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Can or Will?

Consider an addict having a relapse. Her promise was not to drink. Was she unable or unwilling to keep her promise?

Consider someone with crippling depression. Are they unable to feel better, or just unwilling?

Consider someone sitting at home eating Bugles and staring at his navel. Do I lack the will to go to the gym, or am I actually unable to?

These are the same question, and there’s no “true” answer. But there is an empowering answer. By holding this answer, I have a great deal more say in how things go in and around my life, and people I couldn’t relate to before, make a lot more sense.

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The Five Love Languages

The Five Love Languages is a short book that, frankly, should have been a lot shorter. It’s basically one idea: people appreciate different forms of affection, so if you want to express love for someone, try doing so in the “love language” they understand the best. Gary Chapman, the author, names five languages:

  1. Words of Affirmation
  2. Quality Time
  3. Receiving Gifts
  4. Afts of Service
  5. Physical Touch

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Nope, not that.

The most pressing post I’ve been working on, “How Trust Is Lost,” has been waiting for me to finish a project: the transcription of “What Is The Possibility of Relationships?,” a seminar Werner Erhard gave in August of 1984. It has a section on trust, to which I wanted to refer.

Now that I have listened to it again, and I have it in front of me in text, I realize that I have made a terrible mistake, and I cannot bring myself to write that blog post right now. I do not know how to deal with it.

like most other similar situations like this in my life, I expect it to go like this: I will freak out about it for a while, and then, probably tomorrow or Wednesday morning, I’ll get out of bed and deal with it, and it will be over, and then I can write about it.