when a person wants something, what can they do about it?
the answer varies, of course, but the question can be formulated in binary way
that might be useful
is there anything you can do?
if there isn't anything you can do, there isn't anything you can do about a want
wait, what is the actual question, here? it is whether, when a person wants something, there is, as a fundamental law, principle, or truth, something they can do to get that thing they want. applying reductive reasoning, it makes sense to formulate the question as follows: is there anything the "wanter" can do? if they can't do anything, they can't do anything about the problem.
so, how likely is it that a person who wants something can't do anything? well, they were able to want something, which suggests they are capable of doing things. i mean, it's possible they can only ever do that one thing, and now that they've done it, they can't ever do anything again, but the evidence, such as it is (and, such as it is, it seems compelling enough), suggests that a person who wants something is likely to want things again and again, or, to put it another way, a person who wants something is likely to be able to at least want things again and again, arguably at will. it is in fact seemingly more likely that a person will want things - will perform the act of wanting something - again and again, even against their better judgement, or best wishes. here we have the amusing possibility of wanting to not want things.
whether the wanter can do something, anything, is one question. whether the wanter can do something "about" the problem, which is to say, solve it, is another. but another question can be asked: how certain are we that a distinction can be drawn between things that can be done that will solve a problem and things that can be done that won't? the answer - that, yes, we can distinguish - is obvious, but that's on an emotional level. the answer may be correct, but it's also possible that the correct answer is a more subtle take on the obvious answer. if the latter is true, how can we articulate the correct answer?
does it follow that just because a person can do something, they can do something about a given problem? the obvious answer is no, but is that actually the correct answer?
