Will to act

While listing shortcomings in key areas, another that easily comes to mind is the will to act. A strong will is often considered a good trait in people, with the exception of some special cases (the army comes to mind; strong-willed individuals may not be as easy to sculpt and fit into the standardized mold that a person has to fit if he is to succeed in armed service--this all is also applicable to areas where strict conformance to a certain model is required and where individualism is not rewarded). But where will is general, the will to act is more specific. It is one thing to know what to do and roughly how to do it, but it is a separate thing to motivate oneself to move. The reasons for not moving might be many.

Martial arts have different dimensions and to be a good combatant, the person should excel in as many of these dimensions as possible. Off the back of my head, these dimensions might include technique, strength/agility/physical attributes, and of course the will to act. Technique is crucial when facing situations where raw strength might be overwhelmed. How does one fight multiple attackers if one has not mastered the technique and learned the skills required for surviving such a situation. Mastering the technique, however, is sort of pointless if one is lacking the required physical strength and other similar attributes and cannot execute the technique. But thirdly, all of this is pointless if the person freezes and for one reason or another won't execute any sort of action at the crucial moment.

This all is, of course, at a high enough abstraction level that it is applicable to many different areas. In war, one must know how to wield a weapon efficiently and precisely, be able to execute the technique, but all is lost if at the crucial moment the soldier is not capable of pulling the trigger. In a business environment many projects fail due to hesitation. In night clubs, many men leave alone as they have failed to act (or if they have acted, they have failed in other areas, in this case they typically leave with the help of the bouncer at the end of the night).

Interestingly enough, people are unhappy quite often, but are not willing to do anything about it. I can identify this in myself. It is as if I'm at the slope of a mountain. I know in which direction the peak is, but I have stopped moving. I am unwilling to take risks to get to the peak in fear of falling or getting lost or overall shaking the status quo. Many students are unwilling to graduate for the fear of having to change their life, go outside their current comfort zones and move onward. Many people stay in violent relationships for the fear of provoking even more violence or for the fear of being alone. Others fail projects because they fear failure. The common attribute here is fear. Of course there are other things also inhibiting people from the will to act, but fear is one of the more prominent ones.

In the early 1990s I was living in California and a prominent brand, at least in some circles, was No Fear. No Fear has since been attached to extreme sports, but the idea of advocating a No Fear approach to everything was a good one. The company was based in Carslbad, very nearby, which might explain the reason why I still own two or three No Fear baseball caps. If previously fear was on an individual level, I would say that the collective fear of different things, as embodied in the United States of America these days, is even worse. When an individual fears, it is terrible, but when a whole nation is gripped by fear, history changes directions. Americans might wish to take a look towards Carlsbad and find their No Fear attitude yet again, step up, and demand their freedom back from the oppressors, who ironically can be found very close to home, this time round. From Washington.