Like chess pieces on a board, life moves us into our always-changing positions. It’s not actually predetermined. It’s improvisational, in the moment, the natural flow of experience. Were we able to choose our experience, we would have autonomy, but we don’t, not really, even though it seems we do at times. Life is pretty cool that way.
Do we choose cancer or heart attacks, relationship break-ups, or getting a new job just in time to be in the wrong place, wrong as far as we would choose if we had the choice? Maybe we don’t choose those things, but choose to be happy, how we respond, what we’ll do next.
Is it possible to have partial free-will? Wouldn’t that decimate the entire idea of freedom?
We believe we have free will because we make choices all the time, what appears to be choice, even though we didn’t choose, didn’t orchestrate the millions of little pieces that had to fall into place in order for that choice to appear.
In the moment that decision is made, the puzzle was left with one missing piece – the choice. The other options had been discarded, placed in the bin of not now, perhaps not ever, other than as weight on the scale that didn’t quite add up.
Did you make that happen? Wouldn’t you have had to in order to have free will? Maybe free will is slightly bound or perhaps it is creating the appearance of choice in each and every moment.
Would that be so bad?
It’s the big belief, the sacrosanct idea that humans refuse to investigate, that we fight and struggle against as if our very lives depend on winning. We’ve taken religious certainty and interpretations of philosophical texts that point to free will (depending on how they are interpreted), built a world philosophy out of it and rubber stamped it on every newborn babe with no proof at all. It’s an easy premise to accept because we want it to be true.
Rather than being a benefit, it takes up most of our energy. Striving, analyzing, second guessing, reanalyzing — watching the stress and doubt pile up, all for something that no one has ever proven. Free will cannot be proven. Nothing truly can be, but it can be investigated and met with crazy curiosity. Maybe I’m wrong, but just perhaps I am not. Don’t you want to know?
What would it mean if free will is one of the greatest cons of all time? What if we don’t choose our experiences but they choose us? What if life is lining us up with every breath, with each new experience, for the next big adventure? Would it change anything at all other than taking the burden of choosing wrong off our backs?
Don’t take my word for it. Heck, no. Check it out. That’s the only way you’ll ever satisfy the ache within, that is, if you really ready to risk seeing if free will is free, after all, hanging onto free will is a guarantee of hanging onto the separate self and maybe you still want that one to hang around.
There is no appropriate bio for Amaya Gayle. She doesn’t exist other than as an expression of Consciousness Itself. Talking about her in biographical terms is a disservice to the truth and to anyone who might be led to believe in such nonsense. None of us exist, not in the way we think. Ideas spring into words. Words flow onto paper and yet no one writes them. They simply appear fully formed. Looking at her you would swear this is a lie. She’s there after all, but honestly, she’s not. Bios normally wax on about accomplishments and beliefs, happenings in time and space. She has never accomplished anything, has no beliefs and like you was never born and will never die. Engage with Amaya at your own risk.