As an acorn is targeted upon becoming an oak, so in other cases, for a being with a nature to seek its particular good is to aim at what perfects, fulfills, or completes it -- what it is made for, what it is ordered to, what fully actualizes its potentiality.  Not even an addict who craves heroin seeks destruction as such; he seeks some lesser good that he mistakes for his greatest good but that really destroys it.

So often, when people say they are seeking fulfillment, what they mean is merely “I am trying to get what I desire.”  They assume that this will be fulfilling, even when what they desire is destructive of their nature.  Our natural inclinations are not what we happen to crave, but what we are made to pursue, what the unfolding of our inbuilt potentialities requires.

When all goes well, our natural inclinations and our cravings correspond, yet the match can certainly fail.  Those who suffer physical or psychological disorders may subjectively long for things that are bad for them; so may the immature; so may those who are habituated to vice.  Just as a ball may roll up instead of down an inclined plane if some other force is acting on it, so a person may not desire what he is naturally inclined to desire -- but this in no way shows that he is not naturally inclined to desire it.

Tomorrow:  How You Are Different from a Cow