Every time I bring up free will around here, there's always one or two chumps who come out of the woodwork to make sophomoric arguments about the nature of free will vs determinism. I have usually half-assed my replies to them because for real it's a nauseating subject, which is why I've opted to take some laxatives before we talk about free will today. Let's get into this load of horse dooky, shall we?

I have a friend whom I get into some heated debates about this topic on the regular. Real smart dude; he once won several medals at an academic decathlon while robotripping on nine hundred milligrams of dextromethorphan. That's what's in cough syrup, if you're not hip and with it. But, that said, I think my friend has huffed too much glue in his life to really get the subtle nuance of language that defines the crux of where we can't seem to agree. How about we talk about that, shall we?

So, the thing my friend and I get caught up on every single friggin' time we discuss free will is the notion of what "free" means. My friend insists that anything short of instantaneously willing the air into gold and maintaining a perpetual orgasm ad infinitum is not free. Quite frankly, I think this type of thinking is fucking stupid. Of course there are limitations. Would you even want to exist if you were omnipotent? No, you already decided that this life is better back when we were all God in a singularity. Shit gets boring if you have all the cheat codes enabled. Limitations give life meaning, because limitations create rules and a feeling of success when you achieve something meaningful.

Now, moving onto the core of the free will vs determinism debate; there's no way to know if we have it one way or the other. But, you also have to understand that you actually can't know anything; knowledge is an illusion created when you have enough faith in a belief. Personally, I believe the universe is wholly mechanical, but I also choose to believe that there is some transcendental force that allows us to pilot freely across the Earth because this is a belief that instills a sense of duty and responsibility onto me, and in turn that makes me more moral, grateful, and industrious. That's really the important thing I want you to seriously try to wrap your head around: you can consciously choose to reprogram your brain and depending on what you choose to install as software, you will influence your agency. In short, free will is a skill.

Think of this: you're the captain of a ship on the ocean. That means you are not the boat, meaning you are not able to navigate perfectly at will. Nor are you the ocean, meaning you are beholden to the waves that knock you around. You instead give commands to shift the sails and rudders and all that jazz. You are the definer of the algorithm that your crew follows, which means what your physical body is capable of doing. That means that you only have a small subset of choices that really matter, and in this metaphor that is how you choose to program yourself. If you hold certain beliefs, you will rise closer to mastery to properly captain the ship, and if you hold other beliefs, then you will fumble while battling the sea. 

So, how do you reinstall different beliefs in that mushy sponge in your skull that tells you how to do everything from wiping your ass to solving differential equations? It's a simple matter of becoming aware of this power you have, which you now are because this is a blinking red wake up alarm to jostle the slumbering awake. Whoop whoop whoop. Calling all dumbasses; if you still fight your liberation from the way you were, it's now completely your fault if you suffer. Sorry, I don't make the rules, I just fuck around here like it's my job.

After you attain the awareness that you can change your adaptability to the world and all the atomic bullshit in it, then you work to be mindful as much as you can while feeding yourself as novel of experiences as possible. The novelty will show you the relativity of your operating system and if you notice that you are in a state of mind to upgrade your framework, then you will automatically shift your perspective and thus who you are at your core. It's a gradual process at first, as you have to become unstuck from the way your mind has bent itself, but once you loosen it up, you will become more flexible in your ability to believe something new at will. 

It's that simple. I could break it all down into express details, but I really have to poop right now, so I'm just going to run there and oh my God why am I still typing, my sphincter is about to pop. Gaaaah why did I take laxatives!? I'm so stupid!