Is the entire universe playing out a deterministic event where everything that happens is the result of everything that came before it like a cosmic series of dominoes? Maybe! The likelihood that we have free will is contested by physicists, neuroscientists, and philosophers alike!
All I know is that it seems best to act as if we have free will. To assume a sense of agency and responsibility is more empowering than assuming we have no control.
Then again, that may just be what I’m predetermined to say and believe!
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Mar 10, 2025
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you know the best thing about all this? In the end none of it even matters :)
Mar 10, 2025
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Maybe we do have free will and I just think this way because I’ve never felt I had control over my life! I don’t know how we possibly could have ended up here, but I strongly feel that my consciousness is only a manifestation of my physical body, which takes its place in an inevitable evolutionary march of organic machinery. Hopefully this is only a disconnection from my environment and spirituality. Maybe God will strike me down for such a sentiment. Maybe one day the matter that makes me up will arrange again, and I will exist after death. I do have principles and think it’s important to act on them but the action is inevitable as well. Someone please prove me wrong
Mar 10, 2025
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I’m very anti-free-will-pilled rn. This new book Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will, argues all the baseline variables that precede action (our past, our current mood, our biology, our culture, etc) have an inescapable effect on our choices. To me, this is isn’t hopeless–it’s humanist! The alchemy of what motivates us is crazy! There is a traceable, individually justified reason for why we all do what we do. It’s helped me approach myself and others with openness and curiosity, instead of judgment. Like, think about the confluence of influences that drives one to goon. The world is magical place.
Feb 8, 2024
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i believe/think we do have free will because consciousness has not and, likely, will not be explained by science. Why are we conscious? What *is* consciousness? If we find and answer to those questions, then yea maybe we are living out our little predetermined mission 🤷♀️
Mar 10, 2025
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I’m not a parent and do not plan to be. Kids can wear me out fast with their high energy and noise level; it leaves me very over-stimulated. But it’s pretty extreme when people say they ”hate kids” and I often feel it’s a reflection of their childhood and beliefs around how kids “should be.” That they were expected to be quiet, obedient, and out of the way by their parents when they were little.
It’s fucking hard to be a kid. You’re dealing with a rapidly-changing body and underdeveloped brain, managed by flawed adults who are enforcing boundaries that you do not understand. It’s confusing and hard to manage your feelings and honestly just a lot.
People are impatient with kids when they‘re brand new to the world and figuring it all out, and this is a time kids need a friend the most. Children can also be teachers to adults with how they are less habituated to the world. They teach us how to be free and open-hearted and silly and imaginative.
A good practice is to be kinder and gentler with kids. If that feels difficult, start with gentleness toward your inner child. Maybe that’s the child in your life that needs your attention and kindness most.
Apr 16, 2025
I meant to post this yesterday. Absolutely beautiful morning for walk.
This morning is also beautiful but in a spring rain kind of way.
Mar 23, 2025
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Prescriptive gender is a prison. Rather than gender being a form of self-expression, gender is treated as a pass/fail test for how well you can conform to cultural expectations.
Since I was young, I remember feeling a great deal of pressure to conform to these expectations around what “men” are meant to be. You like sports, cars, womanizing, aggression, and not having feelings. I felt so distant from this ideal. I was sensitive and shy, and I preferred spending my time being creative in some way
For a long time, I felt like I was failing at “being a man.” In many ways I was! Because I didn’t need to bea man. All I needed to be was myself.
It’s taken me a long time to separate myself from prescriptive gender, sharpening in on which aspects of masculine energy I identify with and which I don’t. I’m not done yet. Maybe I will never fully be. The self continues to evolve over time, and I suspect aspects of my gender will too.
Mar 15, 2025