Hey! This is Beymer, and I am the author of the newsletter “Figuring Things Out”. In this fifth article on religion, I am writing about the concept of freewill or the lack thereof. Do you feel you’re in control of your life or are you going somewhere in a handbasket? Maybe Moses floating down the Nile in a basket is more like your situation? As we grow from toddlers to young adults, we gradually acquire more “freedom” to make decisions and do things. Eventually, we transition into young adults and all the complexity of surviving in today’s world can at times be overwhelming. Obtaining the necessary education and job hunting can take its toll on our psyche! At some points in our journey, the floating in a basket sensation may occur, but if you have willpower and do your research such moments should be temporary. Who’s in control? Is it God? Is it society? Is it the people surrounding you? Where are you headed?
Some lucky souls seem to have it made in the shade! They are borne into money and get into the finest schools. They get the cushy jobs. It’s as if the Gods have paved the way for them to success. Others may seem to be “borne under a bad sign! If it wasn’t for bad luck, they would have no luck at all!” (Thanks, good ole Albert King!). While others, like myself, spend some time floating but other times crawling, walking or running to where they want to go. I must admit that I sometimes felt like I was being carried on the path, if not floating down the river, and had no idea how I got on that train or where it was headed. Other times I felt stuck in the mud. Still other times I could not believe my good fortune and the beautiful scenery ahead! Maybe there was guardian angel(s) watching over and helping me along the way? Is my path through life predetermined or do I have some control over what happens? I think the answers to these questions can be found by carefully examining the important decisions or lack thereof in your journey through life. Did things just happen, and you just went with the flow? Was your journey, instead, a series of crossroads where you had to choose which path? Did you often find yourself swimming upstream or stuck in the mud?
For me, it was as series of crossroads. The Navy, engineering school, working at IBM, Lockheed, Schrader and finally teaching at a community college seem now to be brief stops along my path through life, but as I was progressing down the path, I sometimes felt I wasn’t determining the destination or maybe I missed a turnoff. Don’t misunderstand me, I made good decisions and would not change any of the major decisions or paths taken at the crossroads I encountered, but sometimes I felt at the time like I was floating in that proverbial basket down the river. Looking back, I feel fortunate to have been given the opportunities to do what I did. I think there were equally good opportunities that I could have taken that would have been just as satisfying as the path I ended up taking.
Since this article is part of a series of articles on religion, let me rephrase the question to whether or not God (again, I use this word as a placeholder for the Unknown, the Void, the Creator(s), or whatever that may be that was involved with the existence we now experience) has predetermined everything that is and will ever happen both to individual creatures and their society as a whole? Is it a predetermined world or a stochastic world? By stochastic world I mean one where the events that occur are due to the accumulation of individual events that culminate into the present result. The randomness or stochastic part here is the free-will decisions made either randomly or based off other mitigating factors affecting each individual. I say we all are in a basket moving down a slow river. The basket and the river represent our environment we are borne into and the response of society to the major events of the time. For example, maybe you are born into a war-torn country with a struggling economy? Instead, maybe you are born in a rich country abounding with opportunities for young hardworking people. This basket and river do not dominate your path through life, they just start you in a direction or move you along the timeline in a direction based off previous decisions. Along the river opportunities will present themselves where you can swim to the riverbank and perhaps discover a more promising path. So, I say no! Your life path is not predetermined. However, there is an initial flow path, created by your environment, that may or may not be helpful in you reaching your final desired path through life. In other words, you may find yourself swimming upstream at certain points in your journey, and that’s ok! These upstream stints are not due to you bucking the natural predetermined path for you: They occur because of this initial environmental flow taking you down the path you don’t want. Don’t give up: When you find yourself floating on that basket, keep a sharp lookout for a nice riverbank to depart from the river.