There are two aspects of terrestrial life that make this world dire and grave, with grave consequences. One is all our susceptibility in our physical bodies (body and brain) of being tortured, killed, assaulted or otherwise victimized, infected with any horrible disease, or fall victim to our vital needs not being met. But this is not the only thing in the world that causes suffering--for whenever a man anywhere has a desire of a certain end or aim or goal which frustrates him and escapes him, he suffers. There are dozens and dozens of people who run or try to run in the short-distance sprint each Summer Olympics; all but three will meet total failure, after a lifetime of preparation, work, and total focus on their end. There are many more examples of failure in our goals, but what they boil down to is this: that the world resists our will; and this, on the face of it, consists of suffering.

Human life is at its most fundamental is activity or action to transform the world into its being useful to us. As a species we are constantly laboring to create this or that product (car, house, dietary product, etc.) or phenomenon (literary, cinematic, etc.) out of the raw state of nature. And on down at the level of the individual human, he also must--in most cases--find employment in some capacity. Such employment for wages is fundamentally him offering his labor to transform the world for human consumption, and receiving his due reward for such labor. This is praxis: the fact of work for the human race.

We would have no need for labor or praxis were it not for the fact that the world resists our will. We can snap our fingers and will the dishes to be washed, but they will not be washed. The dishes resist our will and stay unwashed, until we pay into them the labor of washing them; and with this effort they attain to the state we desire. All it means for the world to resist our will is that we must go up against that world, and throw our muscle into it to transform it into being how we would have it. Mere will is not enough; and the world always resists our will, till we throw into the system our labor, whose object is to transform nature according to our will.

Most people at one point or another in their lives have dreams and aspirations, to be met with varying success. Whether as young people we pursue visual arts, music, intellectual pursuits, sports or so on, we are willing that what we would have for ourselves should come to pass: we are willing our success in these endeavors, and so we throw our muscle, energy and activity into attaining it. No matter the goal, whatever it is that we will, we meet with resistance. The long-distance runner and the football player, must constantly work and condition their bodies, practice--work, work, work--to create the state that they would have. And this necessity to work tirelessly at the goal implies that the goal--or the world itself--resists us, till we should put in enough physical or psychological effort and energy into creating the state of affairs that we would have. There is an incredible spectrum between the dishwasher and the President, the rock star or athletic champion, and the house painter. Whatever our endeavor, whatever state of affairs we desire: we must work and work, throw energy at the problem, till we meet with success or failure.

All of this work, all of this activity, all of this effort required of the human subject, whatever be his goal, would not be necessary if the world did not resist us; and the fact of our energy thrown into the problem to transform it into how we would have it is the human subject grappling with this resistance and engaging it. We will this or that state of affairs, but we must throw our muscle into it--grapple with the world and work it over--in order for the state of affairs which we desire to come to pass.

The world resists us and nature resists us; constantly we must use our muscle in this way or that to make the state of affairs that we would will: this is praxis, and it depends upon the principle that the world resists our will. Were it not for this resistance, our will, like God’s, would mean instantaneously the state that we will. But Humanity before the world is Humanity whom the world resists; and praxis is the use of muscle, force, effort, and energy to make the resisting world conform to how we would have it, how we would will it to be.