Why do I always find reasons for what I already want?
You decide to quit a job, buy something expensive, or cancel your plans, and by the time you explain the choice to others, your arguments are polished and convincing. But were those reasons there first, or did they appear only after the decision was made?
A resolution on a ship
Franklin recalls a moment from his youth. He had committed to a vegetarian diet on principle. During a voyage from Boston, the ship became becalmed, and the crew caught plenty of cod.
Franklin loved fish. When it came fresh from the frying pan, he wrote that it smelled admirably well, and he spent some time balancing his principle against his inclination. He remembered smaller fish are inside larger ones. If fish eat each other, he reasoned, humans should be able to eat them too. He then ate the cod heartily.
The line he adds
Franklin could have presented this as a logical change of heart. Instead, he added a single observation:
"So convenient a thing is it to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do."
— Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography, Part I
The phrase “find or make” is key. Franklin does not say the argument about the fish was false. He points out the sequence: the smell triggered the desire, and the mind quickly found a reason to justify it.
Seeing it without shame
Franklin does not call his younger self a hypocrite. He describes the scene in the first person and laughs at the process. In this view, the inclination remains an inclination, and the reason is simply a tool hired for the occasion. Acting against one’s own interest is a separate issue with its own page. In this case, the desire and the reason align; the only question is which one arrived first.
What decision did I explain to myself only after I had already made it?
Epimelea is an app built around the existential school. The conversation carries over from one meeting to the next. The archive is encrypted on the device and belongs to the person who wrote it.
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