what about my freedom?

I mentioned before how easy it is to justify everything, and how its ultimately making me feel content with my life as it currently is.

I've been questioning this recently, what is is that makes me feel so comforted yet entirely uncomfortable at the same time. But I've been feeling so uninspired.

I wanted to talk about the phrase "everything happens for a reason", which I've wholeheartedly believed for a long time. Doesn't this mean that everything thats going to happen, has already been predetermined by some laws of nature? And where does that leave me?

I do suppose that everything thats happened in my life so far has made me the person I am today. This is to say, that in 10 years I'll be a person made up of a collection of entirely new experiences, but does this mean I'd still be the same person? What I'm trying not to do is question who I am, but rather whats in store for me. If everything happens for a reason, does that make everything reasonable?

If our "path" in life can already be explained, actually, if our whole world can be explained by a series and collaboration of smaller affairs; hypothetically, if I knew everything there was to know about the world, then I would know at every moment what is going to happen next.

I am definitely not an advocate for science as a way of explaining everything there is to know in the world, thats too simple for me. There has to be ways of explaining things like our minds and our conscious and our destinies that involves something over and above our physical selves. The notion that everything that happens in our lives has in some way already been established, leaves no room for freedom. What about my free will?  The decisions I make?

We are not a result of laws and rules put in place by the natural world. We are special. Ultimately, we reason, we make decisions, we take responsibility. We act freely and because of that we can feel. I wouldn't be able to feel proud of myself, or feel ashamed or guilty. I do experience these emotions, I feel certain ways about things because I know I play the supreme role in my own life.

I cannot tell whether leaving the path of my life up to unwritten rules is comforting or not. But it is important to know that we are different from the natural world, we are not just another animal driven by instinct. Part of the reason we think we are free is because we have the experience of making choices. Surely, up until the exact moment you make a decision, you still have a choice, it could go either way. If this is the case then the past remains the same and each decision you make is compatible with it. In order to make sense of our decisions, you have to believe the past doesn't determine what we do.

You have to believe the universe is compatible with you turning left, and the universe is compatible with you turning right.

Okay I know we're going somewhere much too philosophical for a Wednesday morning, but I wanted to address something along the lines of determinism and free will. You could say, I made that decision because that is something I wanted to do, based on a set of internal states. There is a theory that that states: within us we have a bunch of different urges all fighting against each other, and what you do is determined by whatever urge is the strongest. I have to question whether this actually is genuine freedom. If this turns out to be true then are we actually free?

You might be in situations where your desires will push you one way, but to act freely, you have to be able to do things in spite of your desires because they "make sense". If my desires don't make me do something, then what does it mean for me to do it? Whats left? ME. Not my character, upbringing, desires or circumstances (they are parts of me), but when I make a decision, I make it.

I am not something that happens, I am a person, I can make things happen. I can cause the events of the universe to change, but that doesn't mean I am an event of the universe. You are not controlled by events of the past, or your desires or by events that occur in the universe, you stand apart from these things. You are just you. What we are committed to, by virtue of our own nature, is to be free.

We are a little bit like Gods, if you think about it. We are movers and can make things happen but not just because some other force moves us. Take Aristotle, "A staff moves a stone, which is moved by a hand, which is moved by a man."

I can safely refute the common phrase "everything happens for a reason". It is troubling to realise the extent to which we have completely agency we have over our own lives. I think this is why some people choose to believe that everything happens for a reason.