Properties of Willingness Elements

Common v Differentiating Properties

Insofar as the elements have properties in common, these properties are those of RL7-Willingness, the Root Level that emanates the elements.

Common properties:

• positivity: this property is intrinsic to the function of willingness; it relates to being wholehearted in whatever is done.

• energy: the Will (R) is conceived as the reservoir of energy for psychosocial existence and its endeavours. This energy must be available for delivery to endeavours and it is conjectured that this occurs via willingness. There is no reason to postulate negative energy, because absence or minimal amounts of energy emerge as unwillingness or reluctance.

• variability: because there can be more or less energy, willingness can be more or less intense. If the intensity is zero, there is reluctance. As intensity builds, a person is more and more energized to use the appropriate element.

The teacher's universal injunction—"must try harder"—is appropriate in principle, but ways to enable that production of energy require clarification of the willingness elements.

While the elements developed in the previous topic seem quite distinct, it is necessary to validate and emphasize distinctions among them. This can be achieved by considering the following properties for each element or level.

• Benefit that is desired, sought and expected.
• Fears that are overcome when releasing willingness.
• Required quality.
• Uncontrollable factors that can interfere in everyday life.
• Unwillingness (syn. reluctance, reticence, resistance) that has consequences if persistent.
• Handling unwillingness may be necessary in gentle or severe ways.

Try : Keep Trying (L1)

Function:  Trying refers to making a specific attempt even though failure is evidently possible or even likely.

Table of Properties

Benefit to be gained	Trying is intrinsically morale boosting, for yourself and often for those around you. Even if you fail, you are rarely worse off unless trying has significant costs. Culture can assist by making trying praiseworthy,
Fears to be overcome	The fear that failure will expose you, internally or externally, to humiliation, inferiority and criticism can block attempts. Actual failure is paradoxically a form of success: it proves you tried and deserve admiration for that.
Required quality	Initiation: initiating action (i.e. the trial)
Uncontrollable factors	Luck can generate unfortunate hurdles or provide silent assistance.
Form of Unwillingness	Refusal to try whenever failure threatens, which can ultimately lead to passivity or apathy and produce stagnation.
Handling Unwillingness	Staging the attempt allows the challenge to be addressed piecemeal, and managing the environment can help reduce exposure-related fears. Compulsion may be used when all else fails.

Believe: Maintain a Belief (L2)

Function: Believing refers to adhering to and applying a view even if it is doubtful, contested, unproven or untestable.

Table of Properties

Benefit to be gained	Believing provides a stabilizing inner reference that can be a focus for personal decisions, as well as being a source of predictability and reassurance for others
Fears to be overcome	Everyone has to deal with a fear of being wrong which might have practical consequences or could suggest others are right and therefore better or superior. A deeper fear of inner vacuity applies if a core-self belief collapses. Beliefs can lead to being pigeon-holed or stereotyped, with idiosyncratic beliefs being viewed as irrational or strange.
Required quality	Insistence: insisting on a truth (i.e. the belief).
Uncontrollable factors	When the presence of the belief is recognized by others, it may have implications (e.g. for employment or relationships) .
Form of Unwillingness	Focused doubt leading to evasiveness and equivocation about your position. At the extreme, doubt spreads and a person comes across as vacuous. Note: Scepticism is a particular form of belief: not an unwillingness to believe.
Handling Unwillingness	Explanation and re-framing the issue can remove fears based on ignorance and being stereotyped. Social pressure to believe can be activated via propaganda, or emerges as part of belonging to a group.

Face: Continue Facing (L3)

Function: Facing refers to addressing a relevant reality directly irrespective of its uncongeniality or urges to conform to a common denial of its significance or existence.

Table of Properties

Benefit to be gained	Facing up to a relevant reality unblocks a way forward by allowing for thinking, discussing and clarifying. The disturbing reality may be a private matter or about a tricky social situation where there is shared denial.
Fears to be overcome	Fears of being unable to cope with the reality, often with associated painful feelings of being exposed as incapable and the consequences of failure.
Required quality	Attention: attending to a depiction (i.e. what has to be faced).
Uncontrollable factors	Socio-cultural blinkers that are widely shared. Unconscious enduring biases that have become part of a personal identity.
Form of Unwillingness	Distortion and obfuscation of matters directly relevant to personal safety and well-being. The end result is confusion and delusion with activity that is irrelevant to current needs.
Handling Unwillingness	Dialogue about the situation with a trusted friend allows for modulated support and firmness about the reality. Confrontation by an authority who emphasizes the dire consequences of continued avoidance.

Participate: Sustain Participation (L4)

Function: Participation refers to belonging to a social situation despite its intrinsic frustrations, demands and inconveniences.

Table of Properties

Benefit to be gained	Participating results in becoming valued in the particular group and society in general, and this enables benefiting others as well as yourself.
Fears to be overcome	Fears of being overwhelmed by actual expectations and imagined demands, with the possibility of getting over-committed and being exploited.
Required quality	Submission: submitting to belonging in the group (i.e. due to participation).
Uncontrollable factors	The evolution of any group or social situation is intrinsically unpredictable and conditions may interfere with the desirability of participating.
Form of Unwillingness	Withholding which leads to withdrawal and ultimately to social isolation.
Handling Unwillingness	Encouragement by colleagues can be persuasive. Threats of social punishment or rejection by the group can be intolerable.

Risk: Tolerate Risking (L5)

Function: Risking refers to entering an undertaking for tangible gain despite the potential for significant harm or loss.

Table of Properties

Benefit to be gained	Nothing in life is risk-free: you must be able to enter situations where winning a tangible gain is likely.
Fears to be overcome	Fears of serious loss or harm, including fears of being trapped or missing out or being left out. Fears are exacerbated by the imperfect understanding.
Required quality	Daring: dare to expose yourself to loss (i.e. the risk).
Uncontrollable factors	The inherent complexity of any social undertaking means that surprises arise from unknowns, both known and new.
Form of Unwillingness	Hesitancy or caution based on timidity, which taken to an extreme leads to privation.
Handling Unwillingness	Incentives can encourage risk-taking and mitigation of specific likely dangers can lessen the likelihood of harm. Force (compulsion, threats, ultimatums, "burning bridges") can produce compliance that is reluctant and filled with resentment, blame, or fear.

Learn: Value Learning (L6)

Function: Learning refers to acquiring additional knowledge and skills despite the effort required, the uncertain relevance, and the likelihood of errors.

Table of Properties

Benefit to be gained	Learning provides for guided assistance via new knowledge and skills relevant to handling situations beyond a person's current capability.
Fears to be overcome	Fears of dependency and therefore vulnerability that could be exploited, for example, by indoctrination.
Required quality	Change: changing to remedy a deficiency in capability (i.e. via learning).
Uncontrollable factors	The quality standard of any assistance, guidance, teaching, text or even reflection is variable and can be hard to determine in advance or even while learning.
Form of Unwillingness	Laziness shown as not putting in the needed time or effort, which will ultimately lead to weakness. Arrogance, that can interfere at any level, shows here as denials: of ignorance, of the value of learning, of anyone having anything to offer.
Handling Unwillingness	Innovative methods may help, and teaching can be adapted to the individual's specific needs and personality . Examinations and tests give feedback that checks and compares progress.

Trust: Extend Trusting (L7)

Function: Trusting refers to opening up to a new and unknown relationship without any guarantee of benefit or protection from harm.

Table of Properties

Benefit to be gained	Trusting provides an openness to possibilities. That means it enables any social relationship or endeavour to develop as efficiently and positively as it can given its inevitable and usually unknown limitations.
Fears to be overcome	Fears that openness will ultimately result in being taken advantage of, let down, manipulated or tricked: all forms of betrayal that then leads to a painful disillusionment and a probable breakdown of the relationship.
Required quality	Hope: hoping for the best—that the other or the cosmos generally will be well-disposed so that circumstances will conspire positively (i.e. the rationale for trusting)
Uncontrollable factors	The persistent self-interest of others and the impersonality of social life mean that your trust will often be misplaced.
Form of Unwillingness	Mistrust in order to feel safe, which if persistent can become a form of chronic paranoia, ultimately leading to a life of despair and desolation.
Handling Unwillingness	Reflection can soothe anxieties by reasoning that mistrust encourages mistrust and fosters a downhill damaging spiral. Rigorous prolonged meditation can enable the self to be understood and developed. Dynamic psychotherapy might help because mistrust will emerge and get analysed.

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Table to Assist Comparisons:

L#	Level of Willingness	Desired Benefit	Fear to be Handled	Unwillingness	Handling Unwillingness
7	Trust	Openness to possibility	Betrayal with disillusionment	Mistrust leading to paranoia.	Reflection and meditation, dynamic psychotherapy
6	Learn	Guided assistance	Dependency and vulnerability	Laziness leading to weaknesses	Adaptive innovative teaching and testing
5	Risk	Likely tangible gain	Unequivocal loss or harm	Timidity leading to privation	Incentives, mitigation of dangers, force.
4	Participate	Positive social valuation	Overwhelming demands	Withholding leading to withdrawal and social isolation	Encouragement and threats
3	Face	Unblocking a way forward	Inability to cope	Obfuscation leading to confusion and delusion	Dialogue and confrontation
2	Believe	Stable inner reference	Being wrong	Focussed doubt that can spread leading to vacuity	Explanation and social pressure
1	Try	Morale boost	Experience of failure	Refusal leading to passivity, apathy, stagnation	Staging, environmental management, compulsion.

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Taxonomic principles were used to conjecture the forms and functions that Willingness takes at each level of a presumed hierarchy. The properties of these forms have been further articulated above.

Now it is necessary to check that the proposed ordering fits the formal features of a THEE-type Primary Hierarchy.

• Evidence for hierarchy in the elements of Willingness.

Originally posted: 20-May-2026.