I’ve been thinking a lot about divine will vs free will recently. I don’t necessarily believe or disbelieve determinism or even materialism. I lean certain ways based on observations. Observations which I make by exploring beliefs ontologically [I suppose you could say]. This particular observation has me stuck though, and it feels fundamental to effective action. Allow me to just lay out my reasoning.
Suppose free will is an illusion. Now the meaning of the word takes on a different role, because the idea of free will is still necessary. Free will being an illusion would mean reality should be largely predictable based on a wide knowledge base of narratives. So now if narratives inform predictions they inform choice. If they inform choice then presuming free will is an illusion because the universe is deterministic.. that means the narratives a person knows influences their choices, or strongly implies it.
While I don’t mind having a divine purpose, even if it were pretentiously martyrizing. I realize I can’t really make that my focus on a free will level, nor can striving for my divine purpose possibly bring it about. Maybe it’s a bit because of how draining the work is with the pre-loaded awareness that decisions really matter a lot in that work. So I can’t sit down and merge those principles from the Ethiopian bible into the design documents for A Universal Union. Or rewrite the entire thing in modular documents and a directory structure.
Then there is still this shadow of a paranoia that were I to even have the toxic productivity energy over a long enough timespan to actually just do the entire project myself.. I’d likely already be monitored and should I and were I to near completion of a working network infrastructure and platform prototype.. that I’d just end up “killing myself” I can even imagine some horrifying scenario where “I” the “shooter” (who doesn’t own guns, maybe for hunting one day.. I dunno that’s a lot of work up to and past the firearm/hunting license) obviously~~ “couldn’t” [wouldn’t] be taken alive. We live in a world with really fucked up people, so if not some black flag operation framing me, perhaps I wake up on an island to learn I’m chipped and being hunted for sport. Anyways, I was far more paranoid when I was actively working hard towards a feature full project document in 2024. Which I think is probably abundantly clear in part 1 of these posts. I will likely only make yearly updates after this.
So civic responsibility is already achieved.. should anyone besides myself decide to petition to take part in organizing, researching, or implementing parts of the project I’ll mirror that energy; github is a pretty openly collaborative space. Otherwise that’s off the table and I need to choose another direction to head. I am not terribly keen on social media nor recording or photographing myself. So creating content to help people learn to meditate, or observe thoughts for long period of time.. also not on the table.
Heck there is another thing actually, recently.. I’ve been stuck in a dopamine spin cycle. Spin set to high. So I’m actively, recently, trying to escape from the momentum of that. Vices restricted. Addiction on total hold – for how long who knows XD [reminds me I gotta hop onto a support channel in discord]. The last few months have been a lot to ground myself through and since I think the beginning of April with the full moon (in libra tropical, virgo const.) I’ve been trying to disconnect more and meditate more. Life is a meditation, sure, but I found myself avoiding sitting with nothing but my thoughts and awareness. I try to sit for 90 minutes at least. This week I’ve done a few hours multiple times, but often with drifting into sleep.
For reference, my divine purpose I obviously feel is associated with civic responsibility. My personal purpose though is simply towards helping individuals, starting with myself.
I’ve been recently thinking instead of trying to hold up a sign that says infinite lifeboats for free.. I might just go swimming. Not actually, I hate swimming. Metaphorically.
What I literally have been thinking I’ll do is build a game. I figure it won’t take too much effort, the last 5-7 months of Work over the last 11 years have left my opengl engine pretty close to being functional again but with incredibly upgraded architecture. The memory manager being my favorite part.. object construction was pretty cool too. Got to use some really cool template stuff. Anyways.. point is the engine is just in need of assets with parameters detailed in json files.. an easy enough task. Kinda tedious though.
While I’ve been procrastinating on that, I’ve thought to myself a few ideas for game narratives.. I’ll most certainly make some sort of fantasy game.. probably with some campy dialogue or something. Might call it fractals or something simple and maybe a bit esoteric. I figure I can find some way to include worldviews and ideologies.. or even just the idea of a technology.
When and if I get bored of that I’ll figure something else out. Maybe I’ll just go for a walk.
If we’re being honest here, there isn’t much else I can afford to do. I have enough money to do something every month, but I live modestly on a frugal sum. Which is at most half of what most city people pay for rent. So creating something that is worth monetizing and possibly generating more passive income serves a very clear purpose materialistically. I don’t mind paying to explore if I can afford to.. but I can’t so I don’t. >she leads a lonely life~
I’m perfectly content to do nothing.. but I can’t meet people easily doing that. I am pretty sure my charm of presence only works in person. Makes it easy to hide online – read: passively filter bad matches. Though it does makes it harder to magnetize good matches. Much harder for me to hide in person, I’m 6 foot 3… with shoulder length hair, blue eyes. It makes me fully uncomfortable when attractive women smile at me. Or cat call me from mini vans. I never know how to react.. and I take too long to respond. So I always just continue walking. Luckily for me I mostly stay indoors because I can’t afford to go out places.
So yea. While I continue to just survive.. for probably another year or two.. I think I’ll develop something I can do alone.. something that isn’t existential. Something creative.
And of course I’ll continue writing these blog posts when I have something I need to express. Perhaps writing more poetry if I feel something that wants to live outside of me. Hopefully in time I’ll be able to head out without thinking about food, head places to people watch or read. That’s not today or tomorrow though. Though tomorrow I do intend to leave the house.. it is for… nefarious means >_> just me and my gov. agency tail.. I’m kidding. I hope.
Now the only the standing in my way is my cosmic inability to impose structure on my life. Externally imposed structure is so much easier. On the other hand though, perhaps I’m simply not meant to feel deeply connected to a purpose during this season of my life. Perhaps I’m meant to just be focusing on enjoying living my life. Perhaps my only goal right now is meant to be disengaging from comforts maintaining my bubble. Maybe my purpose will show up one sunny day this summer in a park while reading tarot cards. Maybe on one such day a stranger will walk up to me, say or ask something which allows something to click into place.
All I know for sure are the things I definitely don’t feel called to push myself into doing, and I guess that’s all I can be sure about right now. Since I know how much work will be involved to develop a game, there are still a lot of systems I would need to architect/engineer in order to make more than an arcade game. That amount of effort really bums me out, cause I’ve spent so much of my life trying to do the hard thing(s).
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