Free Willy-nilly

Embarrassingly, I have become somewhat fixated on the concept of free will, and at this point I am unsure whether this stems from genuine curiosity, or from a need to cope with my life circumstances, which I have found challenging as of late. I suspect it is the latter. Ironically, however, I felt compelled to write this post.

I catch myself thinking: “I don’t suppose thinking about free will makes any difference to my life. If it doesn’t exist, it would only show itself over much larger timescales than the ones I’m worrying about”. In the moment, I find this comforting, even though I’m fairly sure it isn’t true.

More generally, fear of not understanding, or not comprehending, feeds into a fear of failure, which in turn leads to paralysis. Throughout history, it has been demonstrated time and time again that, aside from a significant advantage at birth, risk-taking is one of the strongest indicators of an individual’s success.

It seems that comfort-seeking attitudes in regards to free will are likely to result in a risk-averse way of life, which isn’t compatible with my ambitions or my self-image.

Why is it, then, that even after accepting this, I still struggle?