The biggest Capital-I Issue

I am super tired this evening, but I have to make more of a habit of updating the blog all the time.

I spend a lot of time in my own head, thinking about big Issues, capital-I issues. I haven't been really too aware of this until lately, but once the thought occurred to me, I realize I do this all the time. And I'm not even necessarily thinking, it's almost more like pondering, trying to uncover some strong feeling or insight about the big issues.

I was walking on the way to work this morning, and I thought about this, and I asked myself, what's the biggest issue? Surprisingly, it came to me right away. It's Free Will. The biggest question in life is how much free will we really have, have much control over our own destinies do we really have.

Because we are each of course the product of our genetics and our circumstances. But we cannot deny free will. Imagine if we did so deny it -- it would be hard to find any motivation for anything. We just can't go through life thinking that everything is out of our control. But on the other hand we can't think that through force of will we can achieve or do or get anything we want.

I had an important thought in Argentina last year as I was wondering just what it is that makes Americans so dissatisfied. Lord knows americans are unbelievably lucky, we live in such a rich, prosperous society, where everything is so taken care of for us and there are very few, if any, day-to-day threats. But still americans seem so unhappy, much more so than people I meet from other countries. The thought I had was the root of this widespread dissatisfaction are some of the basic foundation myths or beliefs of americans.

First, the myth of the self-made man. "In this country, you can make anything you want of yourself. Anyone can grow up to be President." This is a beautiful ideal, and to some extent it's truer here than most anywhere else. But the flip side of this belief is that if you find yourself not President, or something equally fabulous, well, It's All Your Fault. You didn't get it together, you didn't try hard enough, you weren't smart enough. You did something wrong, probably lots and lots of things wrong.

Going hand-in-hand with the myth of the self-made man is the belief in Limitless Opportunity. Actually I'm not sure that these are separable, or that i have properly separated them in this explanation. This belief says that in America, the sky is the limit. There are always new doors to be opened, new areas in which you can be a Success.

Again, it's true that there are lots of opportunities here in the US, and that's fantastic. But there's the psychological downside. Because if you're not a big Success, well, again, that means you screwed up somehow. It's a reflection on You, not on the World.

In Argentina, they don't have so many opportunities, especially these days after their economic meltdown that started in 2001. And so, people don't feel that it's their fault that they're not rich and successful and famous.

Back to Free Will, it's not so much that places like Argentina don't believe in Free Will, it's more that they believe there are more limits to free will.

Of course this just scratches the idea of Free Will in a very superficial way. A great many applications of Free Will take place not in the public realm, but in the private realm, where things like economic opportunities and what-not aren't an issue. But there still remains a conflict between Will and Destiny, destiny let's say being what's been determined by your genetic and circumstantial background. I'm going to have to think about this more. But I do think it's a really, really big Issue.