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There's this scene in the opening chapter of Dune that I always return to. There's a test that Paul must go through. The Reverend Mother holds a poison needle to Paul's neck. She orders him to put his hand into a box, a box which will cause intense pain. If he withdraws his hand, she will stick him with the poison needle and he'll be dead. The test is whether or not he'll keep his hand in the box, in spite of the pain, in spite of his instinct demanding him to remove it, because if he does, he'll be dead.



I'm always reminded of this scene whenever I notice some unbidden feeling in head, like when I get cravings for coffee or sugar or alcohol or sex. There's this latent desire that comes to my mind, somewhere that's not in my conscious thought, and then I'm reminded of the animal.

Sometimes, I have the capacity to say no. "I've had enough coffee this week", "I'm trying to lose some weight". But sometimes I'm successful and other times I'm not. It's as if there's some resource, some source of willpower that I must draw from in order to reject this animal desire, and sometimes there's enough and other times there's not. It's an peculiar thing.