Hodgepodge 258/365 - Angels

I am editing a short book on the intersection of magic, religion, and science, and just finished chapter 4, "Future Perfect"—sort of about imagining a better future; or looking to the future to imagine yourself back to a better present; or playing desire off of constraints to nonlinearly progress to an outcome.

It's also, sort of, about willpower and performativity. As an example, the author invokes his own decision to quit smoking. "As long as I kept smoking, I noticed that every single thing I said about my habit, positive or negative, was, basically, bullshit. As long as I was still smoking, everything I said served the habit, whether by rationalizing or enabling me to beat myself up about it. When I finally quit, I liked to say it was easy, like falling off a log (though I had to relearn how to do other things, such as stay calm, write, get through the day). The exercise of will seemed absolute to me. I compared it to cutting off your foot: it's painful and you have to hobble, but there's no sewing it back on. So the end point was where I started: everything had to fall in place behind it, sometimes turbulently. As long as I didn't smoke, anything I said about it was true—or, to put it more accurately, performatively happy or effective."

He then goes on to outline a hypothetical self-help book, Dr. Livingston's Quit Smoking Forever.
Chapter 1: "The Easiest Thing You Ever Did"
Chapter 2: "The Difference between Willing and Wanting"
Chapter 3: "How to Find the Portal between the Smoking and Non-Smoking Universes"
Chapter 4: "Angels That Guard the Portal"
Chapter 5: "What to Do When You're Haunted by the Proximity of All the Other Universes in Which You Still Smoke"

"I had tried readily available narratives and metaphors," he concludes. "They didn't work. I don't believe in an angel-guarded portal, but something about it seems right—and it worked. Curiously effective metaphors warrant study not to demystify and deflate their metaphoricity but to learn how to use their curious magical effectivity."

I don't believe in angel-guarded portals either. But sometimes linearity and rationality don't quite cut it.

No, I don't smoke. But I've got a few annoying habits, as well as the inverse: some not-habits that I would actually like to be habits.

I have written about this before. I try not to whine about it too often here, but yeah, it's an ongoing struggle. I expect that's true for many, if not most, people. We continue to strive, not so much to be "better," but to be able to live more comfortably with ourselves.

I'm going to tuck the ideas of "easiness" and "willing vs. wanting" and portals and guardian angels and hauntings in my head-basket. Just let 'em knock around. See what happens.