Rationality sounds like a song...

I woke up today thinking that to be rational, we have to focus on being, rather than wanting. Being encompasses everything that make up how we are. We can construct ourselves along the lines we like. Society starts this process for us, but as we get more autonomy, we are expected and allowed to take a more responsible role in that construction.

When we are mindful of that, and in control of our impulses, our perception of our state of being dictates how we behave. We don't steal because... we don't steal. Our perception of ourself does not include theft as a behaviour we enact. We see any impulse to steal to be contrary to our nature, and may go so far as to feel that something is wildly wrong with us for having wrong impulses, even if they were nowhere near being acted on.

If we purely let our wants dicatate our behaviour, we become the result of indulging those wants. That result is likely to be far from the aspiration we have about who we aspire to be. To be who we aspire to be, we have to behave as that person would behave. Divining the ideal behaviour of someone we have not yet become is certainly tricky at times, even without emotional interference.

But I feel that the bumpersticker question is less "What would Jesus do?" and more "What would the me I want to be do?"

Then it starts to sound like a song.