Hey, guys! Just been super busy with school and work lately, but I found time to update Heroes of Darkness again, I hope you haven't forgotten about it! I hope I was able to slightly resolve the little cliffhanger I left for you guys! Let me know what you think in the comments on that chapter. 

Now, in true PBF fasion let's have some real talk, it might learn ya something. 

Recently, I've been thinking about Human Action, which is a concept, and the title of Ludwig von Mises' great economic treatise. I just want to take a few minutes to explain this concept, as it is the philosophical foundation upon which everything must be built on, if you're going to have an opinion about anything. 

Human Action. What do those words mean to you? Well, basically, it means as Humans, we Act. We do things. Verbs. We take action. 

But why do we take action? The reason we take action is because, prior to acting, there exists a state of uneasiness, or a problem that we need or want to solve. We want to resolve or be rid of this uneasiness, because we expect that through our action, we can resolve or at least reduce this uneasiness. The goal of the resolved action is the end, and the resources used in the action itself are the means. 

But what does it mean to act? And what makes it human? When we, as humans, act, we exert our own free will on our environment, with the hopes that we can change it to solve our uneasiness. What does it mean to have free will? As humans, we have the miraculous ability to reason, or to choose between two (or more) other options. Our action could be taking course A, or course B or C, or to not act at all, because the means of acting would create more uneasiness than the ends are worth to us, and thus, our action would be to not act at all. 

Through our own free will, we act. We do not simply react, as lesser cognitive animals do, due to behavioral instinct, or the way baking soda reacts with vinegar. Sure, humans have instinct as well, but what separates us a species is the ability to forgo, or give up, basic instinct, to reason the consequences of our action to an exponentially greater degree than our animal counterparts. These consequences of our actions, are the ends we aim at, or sometimes, the ends we miss. 

Through our own free will, we choose to act in accordance with our own preferences. If our state of uneasiness is hunger, I may have three choices. I could eat a hot dog, or I may eat a cheeseburger, or I may forgo the effort to gather the materials and not eat at all, choosing, rather, that the end (the cheeseburger or hot dog) is not worth the resources that I would give up to obtain the ends. 

But what makes this an exertion of free will, you ask? Aren't I reacting to basic instinct? Well, yes and no. My basic instinct, hunger, is my state of uneasiness; it is my problem that needs to be solved. Were I more animalistic, I would react almost intantly to whatever food source appeared to me, such as a spider who catches a fly in its web. The spider is guided by instinct to react and to instantly twirl its prey in a flurry of silk. The spider does not think "Ho hum, I think I might let this one go, I'm having much more fun watching the humans freak out in my presence." The spider reacts to its instinct. 

My exertion, as a reasonable human being, is to not just choose the first food that passes by me, be it hamburger or hot dog. I could certainly choose to eat the hot dog, if I came upon it first. However, if I value the hamburger more because I expect it to satisfy my problem in greater fashion than the hot dog, I may choose to forgo animalistic instinct, and wait, or gather more resources to create or obtain my hamburger. It is through action, the exertion of free will, that I choose to reason, act, and satisfy one uneasiness, using specific means, to achieve the state of satisfaction that I expect will come greater to me. 

Of course, I may be wrong, and the hot dog would really satisfy me even more, but that's not the point. it's irrelevant as to whether the action actually fulfills my expectations or not. What matters, is that I expect, through acting and exerting my free will upon my environment, to change my state of uneasiness into a state of satisfaction. That I expect to gain more in the future, after my action has taken place, than before the action has happened. 

That, friends, is why we act and make choices.