Deep Thoughts. 24th October.

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This week I'm going to talk about free will? So Strap in, folks, because this ride’s got no seatbelts and the steering wheel’s just for decoration!

I've noticed how people say, “I made a choice” No you didn’t. You reacted. You responded. You twitched in a slightly more sophisticated way than a lab rat with a cocaine button. That’s not free will that’s just a meat puppet with a Wi-Fi signal to its childhood trauma.

They tell you you’ve got options. “You can be anything you want!” Is that so? Try being left-handed in a Catholic school! Try being gay in a lot of the free world;. Try being unbothered in a Starbucks when the bloke ahead of you orders a half-caf, oat milk, no-foam, extra-hot, double-pump existential crisis. You’ll find out real quick how “free” your will is.

The we have the illusion of choice. You think you picked your job? Your partner? Your favorite cereal? No, no, no. You were nudged, prodded, algorithmically seduced by a thousand tiny nudges from birth. Your parents, your teachers, your toothpaste adverts they all took turns programming your brain like it was a VCR in 1993. And now you’re sitting there thinking, “I chose this.” No, you didn’t. You arrived at it, like a drunk guy waking up in Macdonald's wondering how he got there and why he’s wearing someone else’s shoes!

But we like the idea of free will. It makes us feel special. Like we’re the authors of our own story. But if you’re the author, why does your plot suck? Why are you still working a job you hate, dating someone who thinks “emotional availability” is a brand of bottled water, and binge watching TV shows you don’t even like just to feel something?

Free will is like a salad at a steakhouse. It’s there, technically. But nobody’s really ordering it.

So yes, maybe we’ve have free will. But it’s on a leash. And the bloke holding the leash? He’s wearing a suit, selling you insurance, and calling it “freedom.”

Now go ahead choose how you feel about that. I’ll wait.

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