Wednesday, 21 December 2011

A Little Muse on the Power of Will.

I’ve often heard it said that any of us can have whatever we want if we want it hard enough. I don’t know whether that’s true or not, but I do have a little story.

Many years ago I was sitting in my living room when a spider appeared and walked across the carpet in front of me. I decided to try exercising my will to force it to walk towards me. I concentrated hard and, sure enough, the spider changed direction and headed for my feet. At that point I felt guilty. It seemed wrong to exercise control over another creature, and so I relaxed my concentration and the spider resumed its original course.

Was that just coincidence? Maybe, I don’t know. What I do know is that I’ve gained a lot of things in life that I had no apparent right to gain, sometimes without even putting in much effort. My six years of being one of a small number of people making a living from landscape photography is a good example. There are others, and they were all things I wanted particularly strongly.

This worries me a little when it comes to people. I don’t have a predatory mindset and I’m not a control freak. I hate being controlled myself and I don’t want to control others. But if the will is there, and the will is strong, and will is power, how do you switch the process off?

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