Introspection

Most, if not all, normal and healthy individuals have an innate desire for something that we refer to as happiness.  We may add that they desire this something to a point of fulfillment. Yet most of us move through life experiencing moments, and occassionally extended periods, of joy, sorrow, remorse, regret, pleasure, pain, loss, triumph, rejection, fear, anger, etc., without thinking consciously about what it is that we really want.

At some point in our lives most, if not all of us, come to a realization, either consciously or at some level below our consciousness, that what we want from life is not what we have. In other words, we realize that we are not satisfied with our lot in life.  Sometimes, such thought, or introspection, leads us to search within our self for an answer to the question:

What is it that I really want from life?
Let us assume, for the present, that we come to some conclusion about what it is that we really want. In that case, assuming that we do not already have it (for if we had it, it is unlikely that we would be engaged in this thought process in the first place), we may begin to ponder another question:
What is the likelihood of getting what I want?
In other words, we would like to know whether or not we may expect to achieve or obtain what we want during, or from, our present life span.  A sub-set of this query would involve the determination of the likelihood (i.e. uncertainty or probability) of occurrence of the "event" of "getting what we want" during our journey or our lifetime.

If we view this "what we want" want in terms of, say for example, reaching a specific "state of affairs" or a goal as in a journey, then two questions arise immediately and, to most individuals, intuitively. Taking them one at a time, the first question may take the form:

Where am I now?
That is to say, assuming that we know where we want to go, we cannot determine whether or not we will get there, or the probability of our getting there, unless and until we determine first "where we are."  For most individuals it is relatively easy to find an answer to this question.  That is, in most cases we can determine with some reasonable degree of certainty where we are with respect to where we want to go.  Of course, we assume that we are not, for the present, drawn into the related, and deeper, question of "who am I?"

The second question related to reaching our goal, can be framed as:

How do I plan to get to where I want to go?
However, before we can begin to make any headway in our search for answers to these questions, most individuals would conclude that some additional questions need to be answered or assumptions need to be made.  We then may resume work on the plans for our journey or at least proceed to a point where we may determine with some reasonable level of confidence whether we are likely to get what we want.

Essays excerpted from The Trilogy, as well the entire Brookmaster game, can be found in the pages of this web site.

Happy navigating and, again, welcome to The Brook!