š® Letters from a Seeker
āLetters from a Seekerā is a weekly series of short contemplations that explore the mystery, meaning, and art of living. The word āSeekerā in the title is inspired by the Delphic maxim: āBe a seeker of wisdom.ā *** This series is exclusive to members.
Dear Fellow Traveler,
When was the last time you did something youād been avoidingāand suddenly realized, as soon as you did it, that nothing was really stopping you?
It happened to me recently. I had been contemplating and delaying a conversation in equal measureātoo much was going on, the other person seemed distracted, it was ābetter to wait until things settle,ā I told myself. And then one afternoon, almost by accident, it happened. Ten minutes. Done.
And standing on the other side of it, I could see clearly what I hadnāt been able to see before: the waiting had never been about the circumstances. The circumstances had been about the waiting.
I hadnāt been preparing. Iād been hidingāin plain sight, behind a very tidy set of reasons.
The ancient Greeks had a word for this. They called it akrasia.
Itās usually translated as āweakness of willāābut that phrase might be too self-critical to be helpful. A clearer way to put it:Ā acting against your own better judgment.Ā Not because of ignorance. Not because of confusion. Knowing what you should do, and choosing to do something elseāwhile fully aware of the contradiction.
Aristotle examined akrasia carefully in his Nicomachean Ethics, and he found it genuinely puzzling. His predecessor Socrates had a tidy solution: true knowledge of the good compels action. If you really understood what was right, you would do it. Ignorance was the only explanation for failure.
