Anticipation has defined my life these last few weeks. I wake early. I busy myself with work - what I would do for a brainless task to pass the time. I look forward to meals. I think. I think a lot. F0r instance, I'll think about things like the irony of "free will."
I feel very stoic lately. We.. (and by "we," I mean "me" and my personal intrinsic observations and their extrinsic counterparts found in the masses) ...we are primitive in our ability to accurately analyze and master our own primal desires. We are motivated, not of reason or higher purpose, but by simplistic urges.
Eat. Mate. Conquer. Take.
And to add insult to injury, our society encourages when reason is scoffed and emotional fulfillment sought.
Free will is elusive, at best. We are constantly overburdened with prejudices and abuses, learned behaviors and vices. Free will isn't free at all. It's carries with it a heaviness that words cannot accurate portray. It is full of bitterness and irony. Lots of irony. Free will is anything but free. By definition, freedom of choice inherently means choice free from persuasion or consequence. But our choices are anything but - our wills are loaded with preconditioned tendencies and influences outside of our "control."
"Forced Will" is more accurate. It is a choice in spite of insipid consequences or foreboding factors. It is a decision made outside of lethargy or pain - "free" from fear of punishment.
Our history, biology, and social/religious constructs urge us to act, not according to a selfless, angelic (read: non-physical) manner, but to forfeit will and play our roles as pawns bent to some other authority in our lives.
These primal urges are not us! Nor are the spectres that haunt our consciousness - the powers that tempt our "wills" with their tendrils of doubt and self-doubt.
What, then, does it mean to possess this "forced will?" Further, why should one expend the energy to "free" one's will from these tendencies and influences? We, after all, are atoms within some larger body (Originally a Stoic thought, itself).
Perhaps another primitive power drives me: the disdain of being manipulated. Is the human nature so easily tamed? Are we as trainable as dogs? My ideals, wherever they may have been born from, have instilled within me a hope and faith in the human creature. The ancients saw god-like power within us. Jesus himself asked, "are you not gods?" A tremendous power exists within us, hidden away in the deepest of the human creature. If only we could bend ourselves to our own wills. It's no wonder that Socrates believed that death was freedom - it engulfs all but the mind! (And perhaps even that...) C.S. Lewis, upon the death of his wife, pondered the afterlife, not as a place of bliss - but as a place free from human emotion. A place of true free will, where only our truest selves remained.
I was asked tonight what I would do in the next two years if I knew death awaited me exactly 712 days from today. My immediate and sole reaction was the overwhelming desire to pursue the "enlightened" cultures of the world. I would seek out Quaker outposts and Tibetan monasteries, visit Franciscan monks and try to find the old guy from the second Kill Bill. The point being, for as long as humans have existed, there have been people groups that have dedicated themselves to transcending the primitive desires that continue to pull humanity back!
Why do so many of us succumb to our vices and indulgences? Don't we realize the sacrifice that is made when we compromise our decision making ability? We diminish our very "wills!" Are we so weak?
Personal motivation: Learn the art of fasting. Run a marathon. Spend an entire waking day meditating. Practice ownership of the "forced will."
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