Hello @alchemage and @jayanarchon,

Hmm, one can enforce their will, since they do. Somebody can come to my house and try and blow my brains out this fine evening, and if i don't win, then i'm dead. But i suspect you have a nuanced point to make about that...

"is a depressed portion of the mind wrong?" No, but it is causing rippling disharmonies throughout ones system. It is "incorrect" in terms of wellbeing, i think in the short view. In the long view? The fact that one had a "rippling disharmony" of a certain type seems to turn into a boon, since one knows it in a deeper sense than one who "came up" without it, and thus can speak to those of a similar nature more empathetically, more personally, and with greater detail. But that supposes some level of "correction" of disharmonies then. On the other hand, i have never yet seen a disharmony in another, a "flaw" say, that didn't reflect some similar "flaw" in myself. i seem to contain all the nobility and meanness that humankind is capable of. So might be able to talk to anyone if i assiduously study at the feet of my own disharmonies whether small or large.

i am decidedly undecided on this question of "objective morality and ethics", being embedded in the fabric of the universe. There is cause and effect it seems. Wellbeing tends to be sustained by acting each moment in the service of the highest ideal one can conceive, while telling as much truth as is useful with as much fellow-feeling as one can muster up, while at the same time observing whether or not we fucked it up somewheres. How we relate to emotions has observable consequences. We can allow them to arise and let them pass through us and dissipate for example, learning something about ourselves and increasing a degree of ease that can be rested in. Or we can resist and suppress emotions as they arise which has the observable effect of projecting a warped version of the emotion onto others, filtering perception, and then relating as if that whole process is in the world, or in the other, rather than in ourselves. We don't get to choose whether that happens, it happens or not depending on how we relate to an emotion arising. That could be called "karma" of the instant variety.

From a different angle, human made systems encode their own "ethics" "morals" and "values" whether they intend to or not, as a side effect. "Representative Democracy" and "Capitalism", as just two examples of human made systems, reward certain behaviors and attitudes and punish others, which conditions us to accept some things as good, and others as bad. i wrote an article about that.

"Do we have rights?" i don't know. i have abilities. i can turn a patch of grass into food. Someone can come along and try to burn or take my food, and i can make a "choice" to fight or not. Should any government act as if there are "objective" rights? Well jesus, what's the alternative in the presence of governments? But damn, it can go south real quick if one has the "right" for example to never being offended so long as humankind shall live... That sort of thing can turn into thought police 1984 style.