A popular narrative now casts all living entities as ‘machines’ built by genes, as Richard Dawkins called them. For Mayr, biology was unique among the sciences precisely because its objects of study possessed a program that encoded apparent purpose, design and agency into what they do. On this view, agency doesn’t actually manifest in the moment of... See more
I was realizing how many personal and interpersonal issues ultimately traced back to feeling like one has little to no agency. Everything from confidence to motivation can be traced back to agency, at least to some extent.
It’s not that entrepreneurs are natural rule-breakers. Rather … they want self-direction. They aren’t going to take the world at face value. They have to figure it out for themselves.
Have faith: whatever the goal, the universe will provide lessons. Those lessons will either contain the growth to make you strong enough to accomplish the goal, or the wisdom to see a better goal.
biggest joke of my life… after years and years of trying so hard, i can just unclench the sense of doing anything and
1. my “willpower” increases dramatically
2. i get better at pretty much everything
(this is not the same thing as non-coercion!)