When I was in college I spent two sleepless nights worrying over the existence of free will (thanks to John Milton and how man was "sufficient to have stood, but free to fall"). I sent a frantic email to an old mentor, hoping he could talk me back into believing that there was some way that I could believe in a morally culpable form of identity. He failed. (Not his fault, of course.... :-P)
That, though, has nothing to do with what MOST people mean by free will, and importantly, it has little to do with what I mean in this post. (It's just a funny story ... that I couldn't help sharing ... ahem.) My point here is that free will is bound up with doing things that you don't feel like doing. Except under exceptional circumstances (a la David Koresh), you don't have to worry about your will being free from other people. Even in assessing what other people think, that assessment is YOU, so ... you just can't blame others. Sorry, kids and defense lawyers.
The meaningful type of free will is when you have the discipline to do what you value when it isn't what you want at the time. Brushing your teeth, getting up with the alarm, skipping the frap, paying the light bill, calling your mom .... These are all easy things to do, but we often don't feel like doing them.
And that leads me to my bigger point, about consistency. As my girls have heard me say a million times, the hard choices are the ones you have to make every day. The headlines are about people jumping in the way of a moving car to save a kid, but that choice (though important) isn't really that hard -- most people I know would do it or regret NOT doing it for the rest of their lives. The hard choices are when you choose not to drink the coke (or alcohol or whatever) ... every day. When you choose to put down donuts (or zingers or baklava or cupcakes) ... every time. When you rearrange your schedule to take care of your kid (or pet or parent or friend), and you make sure it happens without fail.
I think this may be the biggest thing that new parents have trouble wrapping their minds around: their lives are different EVERY DAY now. The slightly annoying whining from your nephew is repeated ad nauseum (sometimes quite literally) for years, and there is nobody to hand your son to.
But parents (at least halfway decent parents) eventually get that, and they try to come to some level of acceptance and consistency. What's even harder is when society isn't pushing you to do something. Going to night school, for instance. Many of my friends and family thought (think?) that I'm crazy for doing it, and there are many pressures to blow it off. Most of my classmates don't read, and they get by; my friends go home and see their spouses and kids while I listen to professors drone (even good professors are droning by 9 p.m., as I'm sure they will admit -- I did, when I was at ITT); I have a great job and no need to move on when I graduate, so ... why not give in? Because this is what I have chosen, and this is what I value, and I am exercising my free will to make it happen.
There are more interesting stories than mine, though. One of my good friends was an excellent runner (meaning possibly at a truly competitive level) until he had a car wreck that left his knee sitting in his lap. Many people would have stopped running, especially when they found that it hurt every time they ran after that. But he was in another marathon a year later. Not because he had to be, but because he chose to do the difficult, consistent thing.
Another good friend has been writing since before I met him (which was in 5th grade). Though he has a successful, stressful career, along with a wife and a child, he still has made the time to write four novels (probably 14 with the amount of revision and tossing he, as all good authors, has done).
Both of my central AR brothers have found success in the entertainment world, even though that success has cost them financial opportunities, a normal schedule, and undoubtedly more stress than I can imagine. I've been out on a stage, but I haven't done that at Edgefest. And I've certainly never traveled the nation, getting paid grit, to go to new towns each day and sing in front of people I don't know.
There are too many stories to name. My college roommate realized the importance of studying and doing well in school just beyond the time where he could put himself in an Ivy League school, but he then turned and helped his brothers, who found places as Harvard and Georgetown. Another roommate (and friend from my childhood) followed his dream of writing to LA, got his MFA, and is now a professor ... but the road there was a little bumpier than that sounds. I won't even get into the startling successes of my wife, who has faced down obstacles every day in order to raise children, become first self-educated then extremely scholastically so, and in the meantime made time for me.
To circle finally back around to the mentor that I sent frantic free will emails, he escaped a brutal society to travel first through Europe then to land as a scientist here in the U.S. He speaks 6 languages (and not the paltry stuff that we Americans think of as "speaking another language" ... he regularly writes scholarly papers and gives talks in each of them). Even though he is definitely among the smartest people I have ever met, he didn't become an internationally accomplished thinker by watching reality T.V. on the couch each evening.
And he never really answered my questions about free will. Instead, he patiently talked with me about them, and I go to see him about once a year. Not because I have to, and not because I love the 10-hour drive ... but because I value him and his company.
And I think that's an ironically paradoxical idea of free will. Having the ability to do what you want means that you shackle yourself to consistency. You don't make lame excuses that in reality boil down to you just not *feeling* like doing it ... whatever IT is.
Like, for instance, when you are an idiot and write yet another long, boring blog instead of doing your homework. The will was free there, but not well exercised. Thus, adieu.
PS: If you are interested, these aren't really FB notes; they are posts on my blog, and I have that forwarded over to FB. The actual blog is at http://amusingbeam.blogspot.com/ .
That, though, has nothing to do with what MOST people mean by free will, and importantly, it has little to do with what I mean in this post. (It's just a funny story ... that I couldn't help sharing ... ahem.) My point here is that free will is bound up with doing things that you don't feel like doing. Except under exceptional circumstances (a la David Koresh), you don't have to worry about your will being free from other people. Even in assessing what other people think, that assessment is YOU, so ... you just can't blame others. Sorry, kids and defense lawyers.
The meaningful type of free will is when you have the discipline to do what you value when it isn't what you want at the time. Brushing your teeth, getting up with the alarm, skipping the frap, paying the light bill, calling your mom .... These are all easy things to do, but we often don't feel like doing them.
And that leads me to my bigger point, about consistency. As my girls have heard me say a million times, the hard choices are the ones you have to make every day. The headlines are about people jumping in the way of a moving car to save a kid, but that choice (though important) isn't really that hard -- most people I know would do it or regret NOT doing it for the rest of their lives. The hard choices are when you choose not to drink the coke (or alcohol or whatever) ... every day. When you choose to put down donuts (or zingers or baklava or cupcakes) ... every time. When you rearrange your schedule to take care of your kid (or pet or parent or friend), and you make sure it happens without fail.
I think this may be the biggest thing that new parents have trouble wrapping their minds around: their lives are different EVERY DAY now. The slightly annoying whining from your nephew is repeated ad nauseum (sometimes quite literally) for years, and there is nobody to hand your son to.
But parents (at least halfway decent parents) eventually get that, and they try to come to some level of acceptance and consistency. What's even harder is when society isn't pushing you to do something. Going to night school, for instance. Many of my friends and family thought (think?) that I'm crazy for doing it, and there are many pressures to blow it off. Most of my classmates don't read, and they get by; my friends go home and see their spouses and kids while I listen to professors drone (even good professors are droning by 9 p.m., as I'm sure they will admit -- I did, when I was at ITT); I have a great job and no need to move on when I graduate, so ... why not give in? Because this is what I have chosen, and this is what I value, and I am exercising my free will to make it happen.
There are more interesting stories than mine, though. One of my good friends was an excellent runner (meaning possibly at a truly competitive level) until he had a car wreck that left his knee sitting in his lap. Many people would have stopped running, especially when they found that it hurt every time they ran after that. But he was in another marathon a year later. Not because he had to be, but because he chose to do the difficult, consistent thing.
Another good friend has been writing since before I met him (which was in 5th grade). Though he has a successful, stressful career, along with a wife and a child, he still has made the time to write four novels (probably 14 with the amount of revision and tossing he, as all good authors, has done).
Both of my central AR brothers have found success in the entertainment world, even though that success has cost them financial opportunities, a normal schedule, and undoubtedly more stress than I can imagine. I've been out on a stage, but I haven't done that at Edgefest. And I've certainly never traveled the nation, getting paid grit, to go to new towns each day and sing in front of people I don't know.
There are too many stories to name. My college roommate realized the importance of studying and doing well in school just beyond the time where he could put himself in an Ivy League school, but he then turned and helped his brothers, who found places as Harvard and Georgetown. Another roommate (and friend from my childhood) followed his dream of writing to LA, got his MFA, and is now a professor ... but the road there was a little bumpier than that sounds. I won't even get into the startling successes of my wife, who has faced down obstacles every day in order to raise children, become first self-educated then extremely scholastically so, and in the meantime made time for me.
To circle finally back around to the mentor that I sent frantic free will emails, he escaped a brutal society to travel first through Europe then to land as a scientist here in the U.S. He speaks 6 languages (and not the paltry stuff that we Americans think of as "speaking another language" ... he regularly writes scholarly papers and gives talks in each of them). Even though he is definitely among the smartest people I have ever met, he didn't become an internationally accomplished thinker by watching reality T.V. on the couch each evening.
And he never really answered my questions about free will. Instead, he patiently talked with me about them, and I go to see him about once a year. Not because I have to, and not because I love the 10-hour drive ... but because I value him and his company.
And I think that's an ironically paradoxical idea of free will. Having the ability to do what you want means that you shackle yourself to consistency. You don't make lame excuses that in reality boil down to you just not *feeling* like doing it ... whatever IT is.
Like, for instance, when you are an idiot and write yet another long, boring blog instead of doing your homework. The will was free there, but not well exercised. Thus, adieu.
PS: If you are interested, these aren't really FB notes; they are posts on my blog, and I have that forwarded over to FB. The actual blog is at http://amusingbeam.blogspot.com/ .
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