“It takes the crinkling of squirrels walking in the leaves to remind me that not every noise you hear at night is a murderous killer, not every ache is a signal of death or disease and not each bad day makes for a lifetime of bad. As Prince once sang, sometimes it snows in April, and as Guns n’ Roses said, it always rains in November. Existence is not linear, and neither is pain. The universe will do the work, but you’ve got to do the heavy lifting. Unfortunately, we have free will.”
This was my journal entry I shared in my poetry class with Professor Connie Roberts, who always prompts thoughtful questions in our class. In poetry, things tend to get heavy, the concept of life and death, free will and existential questions are sometimes brought up.
I’ve always struggled with the idea of free will. On one hand, if we do have free will, that means that every choice we make dictates how our future will unfold. In short, every action has its equal opposite reaction. But if we don’t have free will, that means nothing really matters. Each choice you make isn’t even really a choice.
The lack of free will would equal a lack of responsibility, but the lack of responsibility equals a lack of motivation. But free will indicates too much responsibility.
Is the fact that I didn’t have time to make my morning coffee going to drastically change the tone of this article? Or is the fact I stayed up until 1 a.m. playing the New York Times games the reason I didn’t have time to make my coffee? Or for those who believe this is all predetermined, did the universe decide today I would be coffee-less and dining dollar-less – meaning coffee is currently scarce in my life?
Ever since I was a child, I’ve feared the unknown. Not in an afraid of the dark type of way, which of course I was, but in a “What really happens when I die, Mommy?” type of way.
I can vividly remember hanging off the edge of my pool as a child and contemplating whether eternal life is favorable to it all just going dark. I still don’t know.
When I was choosing my classes before entering my freshman year at Hofstra University, my advisor asked me what distribution classes I might be interested in. I immediately said philosophy, and I’m not sure if she knew that she had inadvertently signed me up for two philosophy courses. That semester was one of the most mentally draining of my life but also simultaneously rewarding.
On my first day of freshman year, I sat down for my philosophy course “What Does it All Mean?” taught by Professor Mark McEvoy. I was very quickly reminded of the existential questions I’ve been asking since childhood and stuffing down into the back of my mind whenever possible. The next day, I sat down for “Philosophy of Education,” which single-handedly had the largest impact on my college experience.
If I can offer one piece of advice to any student interested in education or philosophy, it would be to take a course with Professor Eduardo Duarte. But show up ready to contribute, and with an open mind. I believe I’ve taken four courses with him since then, and while they’ve slowed down the progression of my getting a degree, they helped me to at least think about my existential questions as well as understand that no one really has the answers, while also finding a great mentor along the way.
Going back to my poetry class, after I shared that brief journal entry, Roberts asked our thoughts on free will. As usual, it was a mixed bag. But as I got to thinking about it, a lack of free will is comforting in the sense that my actions aren’t as monumental as I percieve them to be. Every day, I stress about minutia which probably doesn’t matter at all. But there’s alwaus that “what if.”
