What's the difference between an urge and a want?
Interesting example - and this will apply for all dilemmas (a specific want isn't clear) - such as leaving a job/marriage.
I feel an aspect there could be that of the "social default". The 14 year old both a) wants to ask out their crush; b) maintain their social standing - and has lots of variables surrounding both. Empathizing with that person - if they scour to find their internal wants, they can realize they just really want peace and asking out the crush isn't worth it, or that they just want fulfillment and apart from an amorphous blob of fear/social rejection/death, they should ask out their crush.
The crux of my argument is, fear is a negative desire, a positive desire stronger than that (jumping in front of the bullet for a loved one) will still dominate. Dilemmas are situations where a single desire may not dominate, so maybe a discovery of priorities are in order.
I want a glass of water/I want to write this comment/I want to listen to a song/I don't want to solve global peace, but I want global peace to be solved.
"A heroin addict wants heroin" is the most straightforward way I can define want.
> rather than simply not really wanting the thing
Consider how an heroin addict will find some way or the other to get heroin, which goes to show that "want" is very strongly linked to getting things done.
So given how you described things, let's say you (try to) do nothing. Inevitably you will feel the discomfort and urge to work, or a discomfort/in a form of cynicism/awkwardness. This should be "processed" to come to concrete practical reasons why you do X, rather than because you should. I am trying to suggest a method to get at this process.
> Procrastination is the broad fuzzy description of a phenomena where a person says he wants to do X, but does not do X.
By "person says" I mean "person signals" (internally or externally)
> Or that parts of him want to do X, but other parts don't want to do the elements that make X maximally likely.
Sure, and that multi-agent behavior will have negotiations and save outward behavior. It can be reluctant signaling - but the fact that there are signals mean an activation threshold has been reached
This applies to all those descriptions - In-fact the last of them "X is what they want to be seen as wanting, but they don't actually... (read more)
tldr: what appears as procrastination is actually a broad label for seeming mismatch or contradiction of internal desires, and the solution is to do more actions that seem default
A student approaches the master for his guidance.
Student: I want to become the best martial artist in the world, and also tend to the farm and do my chores so that I can support that endeavor. However, I am able to do none of it. I wake up, half-groggy, unsure on how the day will go, and at night I go to sleep disappointed in myself. Then I somehow grudgingly do my chores, all the while feeling bad that I’m not practicing my art,... (read 904 more words →)
I like your suggestion, gives me the same vibes as the adage of flipping a coin for a difficult decision because you will know what you subconsciously want when the coin's in the air. Maybe I should have written a longer article instead of slightly aiming for aesthetics - but I will argue that all of such insights - eventually converge to all actions feeling default.