The Problem With Doing Things

This morning I decided to drink a Diet Coke because it was cold and I was thirsty and had to swallow a pill. I did this despite not liking the drink and believing it is unhealthy for my body. Why is that? I was aware of these objections, but the siren song of the chilled Aspartame overcame me.

Habit, Character, Identity, Commitments & Values (whatever they might be) all motivate action and fortify against the hand of industrial addiction. But these protections are hard won through repeated action directed in tribute to their growth (and against temptation). What does someone like myself do to strengthen their will in that moment of reaching for a can? Or recently, when seemingly indivisible from my YouTube shorts feed (the moment of potential separation seems fade away completely). How do you bootstrap the fortress of character required to endure modernity?

The answer is obviously through action, but what kind? Most have caught on that the will cannot shoulder the responsibility alone. Ulysses survived the Sirens because his crew restrained him to the mast. He decided ahead of time what actions to take and used the support of others to overcome his temptations. A boring conclusion to be sure, so I will detour through some related thoughts.

In 2019, I hiked the Appalachian Trail after a long period of period of sedentary living and poor mental/physical health. It was not my will that delivered me 2,200 miles over the peaks and trees of Appalachia, of that much I'm sure. It was the mast. I had no choice but to walk. Even when I dreamed of breaking my ankle and earning a shameless ticket home; My actions for that six months were written in farewells and Amazon receipts for ill-fitting hiking equipment (and all of my wonderful companions). Of course, my will was sharpened on that trip, as were my habits, character, identity, values, etc. But none could lay claim to my initial success.

Another detour... Recently, my obsession has been programming languages and information systems. I have studied a type of program called a compiler that can take code, from a human readable 'source code' to an actionable 'machine code'. You see, the computer (really the person programming it) has a similar problem that we do. Its capacity to act is fragile and each action is under an immense weight of decision. It needs 'routines' and 'structures' to be able to tackle larger problems. A compiler provides that structure by letting the programmer encode their more abstract ideas like routines and structures "ahead of time". The programmer writes code which is read into a single, rich, connected, branching structure called an 'abstract syntax tree' (AST). The AST motivates what actions the compiler will produce for the computer to make. The compiler will make some guarantees about the way in which actions are produced, but it still has the role of negotiating what is best for the system (for example, optimizing slow routines).

We could imagine together, a compiler that collected all of mine or your messy thoughts and drives and ideals, from all of the writing and reading and texting and essaying that might secretly be masquerading as code for "This is me"; and produced a structure of motives, or a 'MAST' (I had to do it or why else do we write?). Now imagine that compiler computed away at that MAST and produced an itemized todo list for you, for each day of the week. "Do this and you will be who you are". What could make you commit to those actions, even in suffering? You could examine the MAST, and since we are imagining and the development cost of everything is a few words, the best tools exist for looking at the MAST; you can see every motivation as clearly as it can be seen. You can debate the compiler, refining the MAST until it is as beautiful as you'd like. At what point would you tie yourself to the MAST? When can you finally act?

Personally, I find the whole idea of a machine compiling my actions unsettling particularly because of the hand that corporations might have in it. This distaste is no different than that of Aspartame. Coke and YouTube are already adjusting decisions on my behalf, and I'm tired of living by such uninspired and selfish ideals as those embodied by American consumerism. There is much more to say... I'm afraid I am no closer to knowing how to act, but I must stop for now because it is time to do the dishes.