Forced to choose because of circumstances

 No experience is in itself a cause of our success or failure. So we make of them whatever suits our purposes? We determine our own lives according to the meaning we give to those past experiences. Your life is not something that someone gives you, but something you choose yourself, and you are the one who decides how you live. Okay, so you're saying that my friend has shut himself in his room because he actually chooses to live this way? Believe me, it is not what he wants. If anything, it's something he was forced to choose because of circumstances. He had no choice other than to become who he is now. Even supposing that your friend actually thinks, I can't fit into society because I was abused by my parents, it's still because it is his goal to think that way. What sort of goal is that? The immediate thing would probably be the goal of not going out. He is creating anxiety and fear as his reasons to stay inside. But why doesn't he want to go out? That's where the problem resides. 

Well, think of it from the parents' view. How would you feel if your child were shut up in a room? I'd be worried, of course. I'd want to help him return to society, I'd want him to be well, and I'd wonder if I'd raised him improperly. I'm sure I would be seriously concerned and try in every way imaginable to help him back to a normal existence. That is where the problem is. If I stay in my room all the time, without ever going out, my parents will worry. I can get all of my parents' attention focused on me. They'll be extremely careful around me and always handle me with kid gloves. On the other hand, if I take even one step out of the house, I'll just become part of a faceless mass whom no one pays attention to. I'll be surrounded by people I don't know and just end up average, or less than average. 

And no one will take special care of me any longer . Such stories about reclusive people are not uncommon. In that case, following your line of reasoning, my friend has accomplished his goal and is satisfied with his current situation? I doubt he's satisfied, and I'm sure he's not happy either. But there is no doubt that he is also taking action in line with his goal. This is not something that is unique to your friend. Every one of us is living in line with some goal. That is what teleology tells us. Listen, this discussion won't go anywhere if we just keep talking about your friend. It will turn into a trial in absentia, and that would be hopeless. Let's use another example. Well, how about this one? It's my own story about something I experienced yesterday. I'd just bought it and it's my nicest piece of clothing. I couldn't help it, I just blew my top. I yelled at him at the top of my lungs. I'm not normally the type of person who speaks loudly in public places. But yesterday, the shop was ringing with the sound of my shouting because I flew into a rage and forgot what I was doing. Is there any room for a goal to be involved here? No matter how you look at it, isn't this behavior that originates from a cause? So you were stimulated by the emotion of anger and ended up shouting. It was an unavoidable occurrence, and you couldn't do anything about it. Is that what you are saying? Yes, because it happened so suddenly. The words just came out of my mouth before I had time to think. 

Then suppose you happened to have had a knife on you yesterday, and when you blew up you got carried away and stabbed him. Would you still be able to justify that by saying, It was an unavoidable occurrence, and I couldn't do anything about it? Come on, that's an extreme argument! It is not an extreme argument. If we proceed with your reasoning, any offense committed in anger can be blamed on anger and will no longer be the responsibility of the person because, essentially, you are saying that people cannot control their emotions. Well, how do you explain my anger, then? You did not fly into a rage and then start shouting. It is solely that you got angry so that you could shout. In other words, in order to fulfill the goal of shouting, you created the emotion of anger. The goal of shouting came before anything else. 

That is to say, by shouting, you wanted to make the waiter submit to you and listen to what you had to say. As a means to do that, you fabricated the emotion of anger. You've got to be joking! Then why did you raise your voice? As I said before, I blew my top. I was deeply frustrated. You could have explained matters without raising your voice, and the waiter would most likely have given you a sincere apology, wiped your jacket with a clean cloth, and taken other appropriate measures. And somewhere in your mind, you were anticipating that he might do these things but, even so, you shouted. The procedure of explaining things in normal words felt like too much trouble, and you tried to get out of that and make this unresisting person submit to you.