Will

“She thought of the moment a few hours earlier, before they had left for dinner, when he had taken her into his arms. Yes, something was going on inside her: recently she was pursued by the idea that her love for Paul was merely a matter of will, merely the will to love him; merely the will to have a happy marriage. If she eased up on this will for just a moment, love would fly away like a bird released from its cage.” Pg. 42 Immortality

What causes us to do things? Is it the desire to be accepted? The desire to be wanted and appreciated by others? The desire to be worth something?

We are all compelled to do things that we believe are necessary to society and to life, such as make a contribution to society, create something out of nothing, make something better than what it was, love that which needs love. We put our effort and our sweat into making the best of any given situation to make our mark in the fabric of time. We study, we attempt, we fail, we work harder, we continue, we repeat. We smile and say that this is what we want. This is what our society needs. This is what we can do for our society to grow and flourish. This is what we need for ourselves.

In school we study and we work hard. Test after test, paper after paper, we try and we toil over a grade. A letter no less. That which cannot possibly affect our person, our spirit, our being, ultimately becomes our driving force. We do everything we can for a letter grade, a percentage, a percentile. And for what? That which is sought out becomes routine. We work and toil over the same path because we believe that ultimately it will bring us happiness. We believe that it is happiness.

What happens then when we believe for a moment that it isn’t what will make us happy, but merely an act of will? We entertain the thought that our actions aren’t our own, but the will of others oppressed onto us. What we do isn’t what we want to do, but what is expected of us. The act of “chasing a dream” becomes the mere act of “doing something”. The act of working, the act of enjoying life, the act of eating, all reduced to the mere will to do. What had once had purpose and meaning is suddenly lost to the simple idea that it is only the mere will to do something. What happens once the desire to do something because it is good becomes corrupted by the simple matter of will; to do something just because?

I cannot help but wonder how many of us on Earth are corrupted by this train of thought. Does this thought cross many people’s minds? How do people handle such a thought? If one’s entire world as they know it comes crashing down because he, for a quick instance, questioned why he did what it was that he did every day, what then will become of him? What thoughts go through his head as he contemplates the meaning of life? How does he come out of such a situation? What then is the outcome after such a thought? Will he come out stronger than ever before? Or will he become a corpse of a once great man and dissipate into nothingness? Will he be another grain of sand in the vast world, or will he be become immortal?