the will is often conceptualized as something wielded by an individual, and expended in the pursuit of their goals, i.e. ‘willpower’.

we conceive of people who achieve great things as possessing a great instrument of will.

however in their biographies, we often find that rather than possesing a great will themselves, they are themselves possessed. compelled by a higher force to act in a certain way; for these people the will is often externalized, and they are themselves the instrument.

they have said they are granted iron purpose from which they cannot deviate, and so the world must fall in line instead.

in our era it’s often easy to dismiss any justification for action arising from a higher power; a form of arrogance maybe, that any individual could take on the mantle of a higher power, in our materialist-rationalist-humanist age.

for good reasons we have increasingly bound the exercise of individual will, but like the chains binding the wolf fenrir, these may fail in the end.