Free will

Free will is a funny thing. How many of our choices are decided by things beyond our control? History, genetics, current financial circumstances. It feels like we are on the crest of a wave that’s pushing us along. We can’t control which hair on our head is going to turn gray or fall out. So how can we honestly say we are free? Where’s the freedom if you’re in abused by your parents? Where’s the freedom if you were born into a warzone?

I meditated on this and got an image in my head. See if it makes sense to you. These are the rantings of a mad man.

Imagine a heart-shaped slice out of a log, where all the rings are visible. Each ring in the log represents something. The consequences of our actions, maybe? I’m not sure, I think it represents the forces of history. Now imagine not one heart-shaped slice of log but many. Many, many many.

There is a blue nylon rope that goes through the center of each of these slices. It combines them all like they are on a necklace. The rope represents linear time.

I’m not sure what it means, but I think it means that even then, with all the weight of history and genetics and all that…even then we have a small choice. And it may be only to turn your head slightly left or slightly right. Just a tiny bit. But that action is added to the motion of the entire causal chain of events and it causes the entire…necklace? belt?…to slowly warp into a new wavelength.

This new wavelength-like line is your signature.

I don’t know if this image connects with you in anyway, but I think about it a lot, and it oddly gives me hope. Free will isn’t an all or nothing game, it’s a part of the mechanism.