Surrendering To The Universe With Grace
The art of embracing our free will within the universe’s limits.
I teared up at a montage I made for myself before the start of a new chapter next year. A wave of melancholy gushed upon me, as I thought of how the current version of myself is not entirely shaped by my choices and intentions and that I’m just somehow led to this juncture by the universe.
Do we truly have free will? That’s a big philosophical question lingering in some of our minds as we grapple with the absurdity of life, and even misery or suffering.
The unspoken fate, the circumstances that we are bound to, and for some of us in this modern age, we continue to live under systemic oppression or discrimination. At times, there may be this inner voice saying : "It is what it is and I just have to make peace with it." While that voice brings some consolation, it may unknowingly lead us into an autopilot life.
That’s when being aware of our own agency is the key to liberation.
Albert Camus wrote in The Myth of Sisyphus: “One must imagine Sisyphus to be happy”."
If we examine the story, Sisyphus was trapped in an endless cycle of pushing the boulder up and down the hill. Sisyphus seemed to have no free will over his own fate. But what is it that can bring him happiness?
Camus isn’t saying that Sisyphus discovers a new purpose in pushing the boulder and felt joy in the repeated action of pushing it repeatedly. He is saying that Sisyphus becomes conscious of his circumstance and refuses to surrender his dignity to it.
That, is the freedom that Sisyphus still has.
Perhaps this is where the question of free will becomes more complicated. Sisyphus could not choose the circumstances imposed upon him, yet Camus still imagined a form of freedom within them. His freedom did not lie in changing the hill, the boulder or the punishment. It lay somewhere within his consciousness of them.
But even this freedom is not entirely absolute.
It’s shaped by circumstances that are beyond the individual’s control. We believe that good things happen to good people and we strive to be kind and hardworking. Yet when that tragedy or misfortune hits us, we struggle to feel the freedom we have in changing anything for ourselves.
And sadly, we end up calling it fate.
Yet what if we can reframe that predestined fate into a redirection towards greater agency?
In Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, he wrote:
"No man can rob us of our free will, Epictetus also said, a man must discover an art with respect to giving his assent".
We can’t control the inevitable in the external world, but wisdom lies within how we focus on our internal world, to give assent to what we can truly control and shape.
And centuries ago, Aristotle believed that happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence. This offers a contrasting perspective to Arthur Schopenhauer’s viewpoint that human existence is suffering driven and driven by the will of the universe rather than our individual will.
The freedom to change what is still within our locus ; the freedom to pursue joy and meaning . At times, we are trapped in our suffering and misery and simply can’t perceive and grasp this freedom.
Yet if there is something we can learn from some ancient philosophers, it is that optimism and hope we can hold onto even in the midst of adversity.
It’s certainly difficult for myself, I struggled so hard to do that in my darkest of times when I was trapped in that dark abyss. Yet I asked myself, is there anything I can do to simply feel alive and give myself hope to just wake up to the next day?
That is perhaps the tiny free will I still have even when my inner child is still tearing up at how we ended up in that dark abyss. I gave my all to a dream but ended up being attacked and scarred for a long time. Yet I’m here for that inner child now. We can still journey through the future together.
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And as I’m writing this, I feel conflicted in defining the parameters of free will, as I’m in no position to speak for the universe and for each and every lost soul who is still manoeuvring through the maze of life.
But if there’s one thing that has propelled me to wake up and show up for myself, it is the curiosity and hope towards encountering something beautiful --- a line in a poem, an excerpt from a book, or some words of affirmation from another guy in the gym, or simply a nice cup of iced americano.
My trauma and anxiety may still be there to haunt me and I may never be sure of when the next depressive episode may hit, but at least in each present moment, I can still choose to show up for myself, even for the smallest thing.
What’s one thing that makes you wanna wake up and show up for life? Perhaps that is where you can still discover your free will in this vast and unpredictable universe.
P.S. One of my recent reads, Letters to a Young Poet, has taught me that we ought to look inwards and write out of necessity. This piece is one of such writings that I’m using to process my own inner philosophical dilemma and remind myself in any future moment that I may feel like giving up. Hope this piece can offer some perspective or warmth to you too!! Sorry if it is a little messy and inconclusive of the idea of free will.
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