"... requiring faith in a perceptual model of an unknowable future" -
I would say also including faith in a perceptual model of a future self that has actually attained the goal we set. This might be the primary objective, to become the person who has achieved the goal, instead of the person we are now, who has not. This presupposes a permanent change in our state of being, - "getting to a better state" as the State Farm commercial goes... In the words of Shakespeare - "It hath been taught us from the primal state, That he which is was wish'd until he were..." Maxwell Maltz addressed this phenomenon in his work with plastic surgery patients, commenting substantively in Psycho Cybernetics that even a change for the better in physical characteristics did not necessarily create a change in the patients state of being. In the words of Bashar, "circumstances don't matter, only state of being matters, what state of being do I prefer?"
Excellent essay series. thank you !
"... requiring faith in a perceptual model of an unknowable future" -
I would say also including faith in a perceptual model of a future self that has actually attained the goal we set. This might be the primary objective, to become the person who has achieved the goal, instead of the person we are now, who has not. This presupposes a permanent change in our state of being, - "getting to a better state" as the State Farm commercial goes... In the words of Shakespeare - "It hath been taught us from the primal state, That he which is was wish'd until he were..." Maxwell Maltz addressed this phenomenon in his work with plastic surgery patients, commenting substantively in Psycho Cybernetics that even a change for the better in physical characteristics did not necessarily create a change in the patients state of being. In the words of Bashar, "circumstances don't matter, only state of being matters, what state of being do I prefer?"