How Modern Life Frustrates Your Ability to Make Better Choices

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:00]Hey, how you doing? This is R.J. So, over the last week, I've encountered a number of questions. Some directed directly towards me and some rhetorical that I've just run across. And they all seem to have a frustration at the current existence within our culture, within our society, within this time.

[00:00:21]And it is that frustration that I want to deal with today. Because if I boil it all down in my mind, it seems to be a frustration that is born out of a misunderstanding and misuse of the concept of will within which our society operates. Now, I'm going to be going over a number of seemingly disjointed things. Honestly, they're all dealing with this frustration. That's what connects them together. Some are topical like the new Green Lantern what is it show or movie that's coming out or Animal Farm the movie that has just come out and some are not topical but again they're all tied together with this element of frustration within our culture and I suppose before I should start I should state right at the beginning that as I discuss the operation of the will which we have used for the last 2,000 years within our culture and building up our societies.

[00:01:16]It is not simply a thought exercise as far as I'm concerned. It's built upon principles of reality. That's what the whole thing is based upon. So it is a reflection as best as we can manage it of reality itself. Now that being said, I'm going to state right at the beginning. This all comes from the redefinition of the will by Augustine of Hippo in about the 4th century AD. And Augustine of Hippo is also known as St. Augustine. And his definition of the will is tied up ultimately with a lot of Christian theology. So there's just no getting around it. And again, here's the thing. You might say that, well, we don't hold to that strict interpretation of what he laid down as the will anymore. I would say, well, maybe for the last 150 years, you can claim that.

[00:02:09]But after about 1,500 years, if not more, of building our societies upon this very concept, free will and free choice, it doesn't matter. 150 years is a drop in the bucket. So, it still holds true today. And that's where the frustration comes from. We're operating on a system which most people no longer apply to their own lives, to their own thoughts, to their own actions, let alone understand what is going on. So, briefly, let's start there before I move on to Animal Farm. I've said this before in plenty of videos, so I'm not going to go over it except very quickly.

[00:02:46]Augustine of Hippo was working off of 400 years of Christianity before him. So he's just stating what he saw as preeeminent among the thoughts which he was engaged in for the last 400 years.

[00:02:59]So it doesn't exactly start with him.

[00:03:02]But there is a significant difference between the ancient world concept of what the will was and the Christian concept of what the will was which again Augustine lays out typically people would say I think within the 14th book of the city of God against the pagans but it's very dense and connected to a whole bunch of other things but anyway the difference is that the ancients believed that you didn't really have free will free choice you had some kind of free choice but there were all these giant deities personal or not that controlled your fate, your destiny, your moira, your lot in life, all these other things. So, you could choose, again, I always go back to you can choose whether or not you eat smooth peanut butter or crunchy peanut butter, but you're not going to really be able to choose the direction of your life or what ultimately happens to you. And again, this is what the neopagan quote unquote progressives of today are trying to bring us back to this idea that your will does not matter. there are these larger governing forces of systemic racism and whiteness and misogyny and the patriarchy controlling your actions and therefore you don't have any real free will. But that aside, the Augustinian and Christian way of looking at the will which was redefined by him is the fact that ultimately everything comes down to your free choices and those choices are indeed free. According to the Christian theology, you're made in the image and likeness of God. And one of those earmarks of that image is that you get to freely choose. And he, your creator, will not frustrate that.

[00:04:37]He will allow you to choose. Now, that all being in mind, let's talk about something very frustrating that has just come out in the last couple of weeks, which is Animal Farm. This, by the way, is a perfect example of what I'm always talking about, which is the quote unquote progressive definition of continuity as being a river of flowing feelings. Because you have the people who are typically on the right saying if you look at George Orwell's book of Animal Farm and then at this movie you see that in the book it's talking about the evils of communism whereas in the movie it's talking about the evils of capitalism which is the exact opposite of what George Orwell actually wrote.

[00:05:22]Whereas you have people on the left saying these people on the right don't understand George Orwell. You see, George Orwell was simply kicking against the goat of a system that put him down in power. And therefore, it is that system that he is a railing against with his feelings. If we continue that feeling into the future and apply it to our lives and our situation, that same feeling says the system we now have to be worried about and kick against is capitalism. And therefore it is a continuity to actually portray animal farm now as a critique of capitalism rather than communism. So you see the difference within that continuity there.

[00:06:08]The right-wing let's just call it way of looking at continuity is that it's based on objectivity and reality. Whereas the left's definition of continuity is based on feelings and relativism. Because for the left there is no such thing as objective reality. Now again they will act as if there is objective reality and it's not rational for them to do so. But the whole point is it's all based on feelings. So they don't have to be rational. You see to them everything is simply power politics. Everything. And the driver of that power politics is feeling. Therefore, once again, Orwell was simply expressing his feelings before over the oppression of communism.

[00:06:52]And if we take that feeling forward to today and apply it to the story and to modern circumstances in the now, he would be railing against capitalism because that would be the thing that he would be feeling would be trampling all over his power. And so to connect to more power to amass more power again because everything's just power politics the feeling would be I need to put down capitalism not communism and that's how they think continuity works. And I suppose I should add that since they don't believe in any real external objective reality. Everything is subjective. Everything is about feelings. Everything is internal and relativistic. That means that every story is simply a self-insert. That's all it can be. So again, take that self-insert according to feelings, bring it forward to today. And obviously in the left's mind, Animal Farm is about a or would be about today a criticism of capitalism, not communism. Now, why is that frustrating and what does it have to do with the will? Well, again, it's frustrating because it's not rational.

[00:08:00]It denies reality itself. But let's talk about it in terms of the will again. And in order to do that, I'm going to skip over to something else and then come back to Animal Farm. So, one of the other things I ran across over this last week was a bunch of different people, creators, talking about this woman. She put out, I don't know, Tik Tok videos.

[00:08:19]She must have a large following or something. Anyways, this woman had in previous years railed against marriage over and over and over again, saying marriage is ultimately slavery. No one should ever consider getting married.

[00:08:34]She will never ever consider getting married. She will never get married. It is an institution that is nothing but pure evil. And then recently over the last few months, guess what? Well, she's got engaged and she's going to be married. And she went on to TikTok because people were calling her a hypocrite. And she said, "No, no, no.

[00:08:52]I'm not being a hypocrite because what I said at that point was 100% true and is still 100% true." Because that was my lived reality at that point. But now my lived reality, which is also 100% true, is that I'm getting married. And that doesn't mean what I said before, is wrong. Now, it's kind of funny because this is kind of the basis of one of what I would think is the best movies of all time, which would be Arsenic and Old Lace. You have this guy, it's a great play, by the way, which was turned into a great movie with character actors like Carrie Grant, Peter Lorie, I think Boris Caroff, and a few others. You could probably find it on YouTube or internet archives or something. 10 out of 10. Go watch it. Anyways, it's about this guy.

[00:09:34]All he does is write books against marriage, but then he falls in love and is about to get married. Now, he says he's going to burn all his books, but at the same time, he's also looking for the notes for his books because he wants to finish writing them. So, eh, you don't really know exactly what's going on there. But the way the movie starts is that him and his 2B wife are in the marriage office looking to get a marriage license and he hides his face and he doesn't want anyone to know he's there because he knows he's doing something hypocritical. Now you see in arsenic and old lace this guy knows at the very least there is an objective reality that shows that he is doing something that is contrary to what he did before and that's known as hypocrisy. But this woman on TikTok is saying, "No, I'm not a hypocrite in any way, shape, or form." Because again, that was my lived reality when I stated it, and this is my lived reality now.

[00:10:29]And those two things are 100% true, even though they're contrary 100% to each other. Now, how in the world can a person believe this and say it with a straight face? Well, it's because this woman is 100% relativistic. Where in the guy Mortimer Brewster is his name in Arsenic and Old Lace, he knows he's being a hypocrite and he hides his face for shame of being a hypocrite because he knows he lives in reality and reality has continuity and to continue from the point he was to the point he is is a turning straight around and having a contrary position which makes him look like a hypocrite. But this woman on TikTok again, she doesn't have any connection whatsoever to the idea of objective reality. She believes reality was defined at that previous point by her feelings. And at this point now by her feelings and therefore when it was 100% before true and 100% now true. Both can be 100% true even if they're contrary to each other because the truth of reality at the present moment is based on feeling and that is 100% relativistic. Now again, why am I talking about this when I said I was going to be talking about the will?

[00:11:43]Well, it's because this woman is participating in something ultimately frustrating. She is participating in the idea of the will that we have had within our culture for 2,000 years but subverting it in a way that makes it completely useless. Which is to say there is a quote from Augustine when he talks about the definition of the will and it is a very dense and heavy statement. He says the character of the human will is of moment which to some extent means that we can change our will and what we choose to do at every last moment. So I can choose X right now and the contrary of X in the next moment.

[00:12:25]The character of the will is defined by the moment it is in. And this is basically what this woman is saying as well. She is trying to will into existence the reality of her being right in that moment because she's in a different moment now than she was before. But the point is that she's doing it in a relativistic way. Whereas the definition that Augustine would use for will is that yes your character of your will is of moment but that moment is ultimately always tied to the anchor of reality of objective reality. If you want to put it in a poetic way I would say that your will is like a ship on the ocean. It can move from place to place, but it also has an anchor and the anchor allows it to be fixed in one place to a fixed certainty of the reality of the ground underneath the water. Whereas these quote unquote progressives, these relativists, they have taken a very sharp knife and cut the rope so that the ship no longer has an anchor. And so you see this woman on Tik Tok and the people who remade Animal Farm were doing the exact same thing. The exact same thing is them thinking that reality itself is defined by nothing but feeling. And again, the feeling for what? Well, it is the accumulation of power. The woman's doing it because this makes her or gets her into a better position. The animal farm people because they're railing against the current system of power. So the backing is power but the mechanism is feeling and nothing but feeling.

[00:14:05]There is no anchor to any truth to any reality to any objectivity whatsoever.

[00:14:11]And that is the state of current existence and definitely current mainstream entertainment which again goes back to the river of flowing feeling is how the writer's guild of America has redefined the idea of continuity. So let's bring in some philosophical to this entire thing. What they're basically doing is using a Nietian mindset because Nichi quite honestly never did anything or wrote anything new whatsoever. All he did was create a quote unquote new philosophy based upon the power of the will, which was simply to steal all of Augustine of Hippo's work and then remove from it the idea of being connected to ultimate reality, to be connected to good, truth, God, anything like that. And so Augustine would say the proper end of the will is the good. And the only way the will can actually produce any results is if the will is focused on the good when it actually operates. Whereas Nichi would say no no the focus of the will should be either the will to power or willing for the sake of willing itself. And that is what these people ultimately are doing and much of our society really because much of our society is tainted by the ideas of Nichi for the last oh 150 years. The only way we really know about the concept of Augustine of Hippo's will is through the bastardization of it through Nichi. But that's the whole point. They're willing for the sake of willing. They're willing for the sake of power which ultimately since it's not tied to reality is nothing but frustrating. And that frustration just bleeds out into the world because people watching these Tik Tok videos of this woman are like, "This is so frustrating to watch someone be so hypocritical in a boldfaced way." People looking at Animal Farm are saying, "This is ultimately frustrating." Why? Because these people are acting in a way to simply beat you over the head with feelings so that they can accumulate power. And it's frustrating. And again, the reason why is because they're using a bastardized version of what the wheel is in their own minds. Not a completely wrong version, a version that seemingly seems to be correct up until a point until that point is, well, no, I'm not directed towards anything but power and willing for the sake of willing. Now, let's move on to a different conversation that I had this week to pull on some threads there about the frustration and the misunderstanding of the idea of the will. I had a conversation, very short conversation with someone in the comments of my video. If you're listening to this video, I'm not trying to pile on you. I thoroughly enjoyed what you had to say.

[00:16:54]Any conversation, again, good movie quote from what? Harvey. Any conversation, good conversation entails two people with counter opinions. But he basically said he didn't agree with my last week video because it has within it the idea that anybody can do anything they want to do as long as they have a strong enough will. And his example was basically there are some people in this world who just can't no matter how much they will control their weight. They might fight against it but they just can't do it. It's not in the cards. And this becomes frustrating to other people in other ways. And this is why people eventually choose the left wing, choose quote unquote progressivism and all its various offshoots, etc., etc. Now, my basic gist of what I tried to say within the comments, which was very brief, was the fact that no, really what you're doing is you're misunderstanding the concept of will and at the same time missing one of the key components of Augustine's definition of what the will is and how it operates within the humanity that we possess. And that key component is the fact that we live in a world of suffering and there's no changing that and there's no getting around it and there's no person who's ever going to get around it. Now, I suppose I should use a quote from Augustine to probably support this and I'll use a fairly long quote, but it has a lot to do with a lot of the concepts I'm always talking about. So hopefully you don't skip ahead. And I'll paraphrase a little bit. He says to be quite free from pain while we are in this place of misery is only purchased at the price of blunted sensibilities both of mind and body. And therefore this impassibility of spirit and not of body or in other words this freedom from those emotions which are contrary to reason and disturb the mind. This freedom is an obvious good and desirable quality, but it's not one which is attainable in this life. For the apostle says, "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. When there shall be no sin in a man, then there shall be apathy. At present, it is enough if we live without crime. And he who thinks he lives without sin puts aside not sin but pardon. And if it is to be called apathy, where the mind is the subject of no emotion, then who would not consider this insensibility to be worse than all vices? It may indeed reasonably be maintained that the perfect blessedness we hope for shall be free from all sting of fear or sadness. But who that is not quite lost to truth would say that neither love nor joy shall be experienced there? But if by apathy a condition be meant in which no fear terrifies, nor any pain annoys, we must in this life renounce such a state if we would live according to God's will. But we may hope to enjoy it in that blessedness which is promised as our eternal condition. So basically what he's saying and he's saying this in the same chapter where he does that redefinition of the will is that again if we want to be blessed either in this life or the world to come you align your will with God's will. That's why the our father starts our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So you're supposed to align your will with the will of God. But part of that will and the exercising of that will in this life is to understand that you cannot have apathy in any way. You have to recognize and accept the fact that you live in a world of pain and pain is going to come your way and you're going to have to deal with it.

[00:20:42]That's part of human existence. And if you try to get rid of it, try to get rid of that notion, all you're doing is blunting your senses and making your ultimate destination one of more pain.

[00:20:53]And when I state it that way, you can see why, and I agree with my commenter on this point, you can see why some people are attracted to quote unquote progressivism, to socialism, to communism, because they offer you a utopia here on earth, which is to say a place here on earth that is free from pain. I should say they offer you a promise of that here on earth. Whereas the building blocks of western civilization, one of which is the ability to freely choose through your will, states, "No, no, no, no. If you want your will to actually have any effect, that is to say, to bear any fruit, it must first embrace and accept the idea that pain is part and parcel of your life." As Augustine puts it, to be free from pain while we are in this place of misery comes at the price of blunted sensibilities. And there ain't no getting around it. No matter what you do, no matter how good you are, no matter even how holy you are. This is one of the key central points of Christianity because you have Jesus Christ who is God himself who has no stain whatsoever. And yet look at the pain that he had to go through or any of the saints. The same thing. But again, one of the key components to the will is its anchor to reality. And one of the key components of that reality for human beings is that you will have an existence which contains suffering. And again the modern way of thinking is you can live a life without pain. You can live a life free from any kind of pain or sorrow. That is the lie which modernity sells to everyone. And it's a lie which ultimately frustrates everyone who actually believes it. Why? Because it's a lie. Therefore, it's not true.

[00:22:49]It's not part of your reality. If you try to then act according to an understanding of reality that isn't actually true, then the consequences of those actions will not be what you intend them to be. And again, that brings frustration, which again is another way of saying when you try to will something to happen, it won't because you're basing it on bad information. So the more and more you try to get to that existence of no pain, the more and more pain you're going to bring on yourself. And as Augustine says, the best we can hope for is to live without crime. So let's talk about that. Let's go into the next part of this entire thing. Let's talk about Green Lantern because Green Lantern is, if you don't know, a comic book superhero whose power is to make constructs of light which become solid based upon the power of a lantern joined together with the power of his will. And what does he do with this? Well, he goes and fights crime. Now, depending how you squint your eyes at this character throughout the ages, you can see it reflecting some of the ideas of Augustine and some not. For example, it's very close to the idea of a fantasm within your mind and the idea of art itself, which is funny because one of the Green Lanterns was an artist. The idea of art, the ancient idea of art, not just art as we see it today, but there were arts of different things. You could have art of philosophy, the art of religion, you could have the art of architecture, etc. And the example I always use is art is the process whereby you take an image out of your mind and then translate it into external reality.

[00:24:30]So let's say you're an architect and you have an image in your mind of a building that you want to build. Now you can even put that down onto a blueprint that's a representation of the fantasm within your mind. But once you try to build that building, if the concepts that existed within your mind and you use to construct this building in your mind do not align with how reality works, then when you try to build it, it will simply fall down. Therefore, you do not have the ability in that case to translate that fantasm in your mind into external reality. But if you do and the building stands up, then you have the art of architecture. you have the ability to do so. And the process whereby you bring this thing into existence that didn't exist before is the process of the will.

[00:25:20]You exercise your free will. Again, you're in the image and likeness of God.

[00:25:25]He has the ability to create out of nothing something that did not exist before. You have a mimic of that ability, an image of that ability to bring something into existence from what already exists now that did not exist before. If you align your will with reality and the concepts of reality and how reality works and is set up, you are therefore an artist, you have the art, in this case of architecture. So you could kind of squint at it and say, "Yeah, Green Lantern is doing that, digging a fantasm in his mind and through the act of the will bringing it into existence, into reality." That's one way to look at it. But also, you got to look at the origins of this character and really the lantern that he originally had was simply a magic lamp.

[00:26:12]So, basically tied to the idea of a genie. And I focus on this because this is very much the quote unquote progressive way of looking at things today. A number of people have asked me why are these especially quote unquote progressive writers so enamored with the idea of magic? Why? Because that's basically the concept of magic. It's the ability to create something without any actual effort, just an act of the will itself. And of course, these quote unquote progressive people are enamored with such an idea because when they actually try to exercise their will and bring something into existence through work, well, first they're reverse to work anyways. If they try to do it by work itself, it won't work out for them because their will and the concept that they came up with is not in accord with reality and therefore it will fail whenever they try to bring it into external reality and so they just want to skip that step. That's why they like magic. That's why they like technology which they think of as magic or portray as magic. But no, they want to go back to the magic of will to power through simple power of their will, which is initiated by their feelings. They will something into existence in order for it to be real. And again, we go back to that lady on TikTok. We go back to the people writing Animal Farm. That's what they're trying to do. They're trying to will something into existence through simply the power of their feelings. And again, what power they now possess and can apply to the people around them, not to reality really, but to the people around them because that's all it really can affect and that's all they really think they need to affect because again everything is just political interplay of power. And by the way, when this new show, movie, whatever it is, of Green Lantern comes out, I'm sure you're going to, if you watch it, probably see many of the things I've just described, because they're going to use the magic ring in order to will something into existence, which is going to support the progressive narrative because there's no way they can actually do it in reality.

[00:28:17]That's why they portray it in fantasy because it is nothing but fantasy. Now, let's move on to one last thing.

[00:28:23]Hopefully. The last thing was a conversation I had with John's Longbox very quickly on our last Wednesday's live stream. One of our commenters, I think it was Rex, said, "What do you think of the idea that villains always act while heroes always react?" And I thought to myself, and I gave a bit of an answer there, that's not really true.

[00:28:43]That's a misunderstanding fundamentally of the will. And again, a frustration, I think, would be underlying that question. Because here's the thing.

[00:28:53]Let's talk about the will and heroes for a second. What is a hero? Well, as I always say, a hero is a paragon of virtue. Those virtues are very specific.

[00:29:02]Their prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. And they are only applicable to a person's life if they first have right reason. That is to say, if they have their reason in accord with reality, which is to say that yes, reality trumps you and reality exists and there is an objective reality, etc., etc. But besides all of that, what are those virtues in themselves? Not in their outcome, not in their use, but in themselves. Well, those virtues are habits. And what is a habit? Well, a habit is a consistent act of the will in the same direction. So, if you have the habit of being just, then that means that you continually will over and over again in a direction that is pointed towards the approximate end. That is to say, one of the secondary way stations that will eventually get you to the truth because justice itself is directed towards the truth. Same with courage, also known as fortitude. Again, you have the virtue of fortitude of courage. Then you have the habit of being courageous.

[00:30:05]That is to say, you will yourself to be courageous over and over and over again until it becomes second nature because you're pointed towards the virtue of courage which is in itself pointed towards the true, the good, the beautiful. And again, I think the underlying frustration of the question itself of villains act, heroes react is a misunderstanding of the will because it's simply focusing on the idea of heroes acting according to justice.

[00:30:35]Justice is the outwardfacing virtue. All the other virtues are inward facing. So you can be a hero and be virtuous in that heroism simply by being courageous, by being prudent, by being temperant. Those things aren't reactions. Those things are actions in themselves. So the majority of the actions are active and the only reason why justice is reactive is again because you allow other people in the society that we live in to exercise their free will. But once they step out of the bounds of exercising their free will and direct their free will to something which destroys let's say in this case the free will of others then you step in and be heroic that way according to justice. So again I think the question is based upon a misunderstanding of the will and how the will operates and how it activates habits which virtues are habits and you act according to that willing over and over again. You can be heroic when you're not interacting with anyone else in this world because you're being prudent because you're being temperate. People simply overlook those things because they're looking towards the more outward-f facing expressions of will and a misunderstanding of the will ultimately. And if you want to bear with me for another few minutes, let's talk about the more abstract and philosophical or theological ways in which the will works and should be the way we properly understand the will. If we want to do this, once again, we're talking about Augustine of Hippo. He's describing things ultimately according to Christian principles. Let's look at the very ultimate of that Christian principle which is to say okay if you get into that place of blessedness which is heaven. What happens there? Well, you still will but your will is perfect.

[00:32:21]Again, I think this most people miss because there's a misunderstanding between the idea of temporality and eternity. Mostly because people don't understand what eternity really means in the original Christian context, which is to say it doesn't mean forever and ever.

[00:32:36]It means the constant now. The constant now that exists forever and ever. It's a bit of a difficult concept to get your mind around the first time you hear it.

[00:32:45]God is eternal. That is to say, for him everything is now. He doesn't exist in one point in time. Temporality is not any of his limitations. So for him before the universe was created is now.

[00:32:59]The creation of the universe is now. The life of Jesus Christ is now. This moment is now. The end of the universe is now.

[00:33:06]The time after the end of the universe is now. That's his eternal nature, the constant now. And the thing being us going into the presence of the eternal now will perfect our will in a certain way. And it doesn't matter. Well, actually, doesn't matter if you're going into heaven or hell, you still get a perfected will, one or the other, because you're going to be in the presence of the eternal now. Because again, according to Christian theology, I think it's the Psalms that says doesn't matter if you flee down to hell, I will be there, says God. But it is a perfected will. That is to say, let's say, each choice is a level of a building, but it's a perfect exact match for every level. It's balanced in every way, which is to say, you can build that building a million stories high and it will still stand up because it is perfectly balanced. And the funny thing again being the fact that we are temporal beings, but will exist as temporal beings in the presence of the eternal. Now that also means that the will will act in a way wherein you make your first choice in eternity and then you make your second choice and then you make your third choice. Each of those being the story. But you don't just make those choices in that way. When you make the first choice, you make choice one.

[00:34:16]When you make the second choice, you make choice one and two. When you make the third choice, you make choices one, two, and three. When you make the millionth choice, it's all the way up from one to a million. Why? Because you're in the eternal now. Those choices were made in the eternal now in the presence of the eternal now. Therefore, they become part of the existence of the eternal now. Which again is why hell is a door locked from the inside because the basically again it's not exactly theologically correct. But the reason why you can never choose not to be in hell. Hell is a door locked from the inside. If you're in constant suffering, why don't you choose not to be there?

[00:34:54]Because again, your first choice is a culmination of all the choices you make in this world. And if your choice number one in this world is to be with God, you go to heaven. Because your first choice is to embrace him always. If your first choice is to turn your back on him, then that's always going to be your first choice because you make choice one and then one and two and then one and two and three and then one and two and three and four. So that will always be your first choice. It will repeat in the eternal now. And again, the question, why can't he make it different? He does make it different. You're in the difference right now. You get to make that choice here. But again, don't care if you believe any of this or not. The point being this is the perfected way of looking at the will and how our will should work perfectly. And therefore, we take that and apply it as an end point to where we are right now in this world.

[00:35:40]The point is in heaven, it works perfectly because it's always directed towards the good, which is God. And thus, if we want our wills in this world to work anywhere close to even approximating that perfection, what do we do? We have to point ourselves towards the good. If you point yourself away from the good in any way, your will will be frustrated. And again, what is the will? Will is according to Augustine, you place your love on something and then because you love that thing, you wish to close the gap between you and that thing. And so you move yourself from where you are to where that thing is to embrace it. That is an act of the will. That is willing itself.

[00:36:23]But the whole point again based on Christianity is that the only thing that exists in itself the good is God. Every other thing well first of all if you place your love on something which is fictional which is a fantasy which doesn't actually exist which isn't real you're going to frustrate yourself because you're trying to embrace something that isn't real. Even if you get to that point where you think it is, you will be embracing nothing and thus frustration. But the other point being if you place it on something which is real, which is other than God, which is other than the good, the only reason anything else exists is because they were called into existence out of nothing. And they exist constantly at every moment because God wills them to exist and not be nothing. But if you try to embrace that other thing apart from the concept of God or direction towards God which again is the whole idea of cutting off that anchor which I talked about at the first then your will is moving you towards embracing something that again is ultimately nothing and thus the frustration. So having the concept of the will subverted in your mind by following the idea that my feelings can define reality and there is no other reality besides that is a fantasy. It will lead to frustration. If your will is corrupted by the idea of some political ideology which tries to bring into existence something that cannot be, then again you're headed towards frustration. You're trying to embrace nothingness, something that is essentially not true. If you try to redefine the will according to a philosophy that says will should be directed towards itself or towards power then again with no end with no anchor you will be embracing nothingness and you will be frustrated and you will never get anything done. The art of living is the art of using your will properly and using your will properly is to direct it towards the good. And although you live in this life as part of your human existence in a place of pain, if you direct your will towards anything else but the good, you will increase that pain exponentially. And I would reassert what I said last week. If you do that, well, that's your choice.

[00:38:34]So, if I've given you anything new to think about, hit like, hit the shield in the lower right hand corner of your screen to subscribe and leave me a comment. Tell me what you think about all this. If you're here, I suppose at the end of this video, you must have found some merit to it. And quite honestly, I was trying to think of a less abstract and more downto-earth video to do for this week, but I just kept on going back to this one idea.

[00:38:57]Anyway, I'll leave it there. I'll see you all later. Bye.