Free Will or Destiny?

On the edge between heroic struggle and Stoic acceptance

First things first: I won’t defend the idea of free will against determinism here. I’ve seen the arguments. Bottom line: today’s determinism is an obviously wrong idea, built on a mountain of falsehoods (materialism, Neo-Darwinism, and the rest), using an insufficient framework (analytic philosophy, materialist science).

While we’re at it: compatibilism—the idea that determinism can somehow be squared with having free will—is a silly cottage industry invented by academics who don’t have the guts to call out the materialist/determinist camp on their nonsense.

So: we obviously do have Free Will—to a degree.

And this “to a degree” is where the real interesting questions are to be found.

Life, it seems to me, is a strange mixture between destiny, on the one hand, and choices, on the other. This is reflected in two distinct spiritual/self-help schools that—on the surface at least—seem to be in conflict: one encourages us to “let go,” go with the flow, not force things, sit back and listen, stop worrying, relax, passively endure life and just learn from doing that. The other tells us to struggle as hard as we can, to get up at 5 in the morning for a brutal work-out, to shoot for a target and give it all we got, to heroically challenge, conquer, and change our default behavioral and thinking patterns.

As is so often the case when it comes to deep questions, both answers are true, both schools are right.

Our destiny unfolds almost on autopilot. Struggling against it simply means a waste of energy at best and leads to total disaster at worst. And yet, heroic struggle is needed to fulfil said destiny and not screw it up. What’s more, there might be competing destinies that can be actualized over our lifespan, depending on our choices; and chances are if we just passively drift through life, we might end up with the worst of them.

The art of living, then, is about recognizing when each of these approaches—heroic struggle or letting go and effortless living—is appropriate. And this is something that is so individual that it is impossible to make blanket statements about it.

Destiny: Your Personal River

Think of life as your personal river, or rather landscape of rivers:

You are on a big stream, floating towards your destiny. Yes, you have wiggle-room: you can paddle more to the left, more to the right, and you can amuse yourself with clowning around. This wiggling makes up the details of your life, the ones that aren’t terribly important. It is in this sense that we need to learn how to let go, how to go with the flow, how to just follow where life takes us. Turning around and maniacally trying to go against the stream will only cause misery, and waste lots of energy.

We don’t want to waste energy, because we need it—namely for the times when we have to completely shift gears: the times when heroic efforts are called for.

These are the times when you need to learn that there is a direction you want to take, towards the highest good, away from vice and evil and towards true enlightenment. Because you will come across crossroads where the river splits into two distinct streams—one big, one small. You want to recognize which stream will bring you closer to truth, goodness and beauty. Hint: it is often the small stream.

But to get away from the big stream and enter the small stream, a heroic battle is needed.

It’s time to go against all your ingrained patterns, to fight against yourself and your comfort, to go on a forlorn hope attack in order to conquer your destiny—to reach that small stream. (Think, for example, of conquering the heart of your future spouse that you are supposed to be with even though you were always hopeless in that regard, or choosing a hill to die on by taking a stand in a specific situation, or resisting a major temptation in your life even though you think this might ruin your life, etc.)

If you succeed, you will find yourself again on a wider stream, and it’s time again to learn how to relax, how to go with the flow, how to accept even things you don’t like.

People who are allergic to any limits to their freedom, to anything imposed on them by other people—in their lives, in society, by their betters—stand little chance, because they are denying reality: they are denying that they are on a river that will take them forward on its trajectory no matter what. Relax. Go wherever life takes you. Accept the limits of your freedom. Don’t struggle.

Stop worrying about what you should or shouldn’t be doing, and just take life from moment to moment. Follow, but with your heart and mind open, and trust your soul to tell you when action is needed. For the next crossroads will surely come.

Now, there are not only big crossroads in one’s path. There are also small ones: micro-crossroads, if you will. While these may seem rather insignificant because they don’t change your direction much (think of parallel streams), each of these crossroads can bring you a bit closer to your destiny, and indeed you might eventually reach one of the major crossroads as a result of taking many micro-crossroads over time.

For example, when you walk into the kitchen and see a mess of dishes that need to be washed, you can decide to just do it now, or you can get back to killing time with your smartphone. It is a small decision—but take enough of such small decisions, and your life might dramatically change: you will find yourself on an entirely new stream eventually.

These are the situations where a sort of mundane, yet crucial, heroism is required. Nobody will ever know, nobody will give you a medal—and yet, you must fight these battles. They can have extraordinary results.

Victory and Downfall Are Highly Individual

So, when should you go all-out attack, and when should you go Zen? Unfortunately, it all depends on your personal river, your individual destiny. One man’s victory is another man’s downfall. One person will fulfill his destiny by going to the gym every morning, another person will get miserable and distracted from his true calling—and fail.

Someone might have to go out there and rant on the internet for their convictions, another might want to keep quiet in order to fight on another day, the fight for which he came to this life.

One should shut up and follow in a certain situation, another should call to arms.

One may need to find the courage to stand up for himself and file for divorce, while another may need to swallow his pride and fight for his marriage.

And yes, someone might need to learn to wash those dishes, while another needs to learn to let go and live with some dirtiness.

All of these things can change in one’s life, and different crossroads appear at different stages for different people.

Some things are set in stone; they are meant to be, and so they come to pass, in one form or another. Or rather: they come to pass given the trajectory we are on.

But we do have the choice of fulfilling the highest manifestation of our destiny: by learning to recognize when we need to struggle with all our might, and what these struggles should be about for us, and when to simply let our personal destiny play itself out, without effort, without worry, without “shoulds,” but with deep calmness and attentive joy.