Freewill.
Well it's about time because everything seems so damned determined up till you reach Girlfriend v.4.0 (I am stealing Jelly's formula but giving credit).
As you can see girlfriend v. 4.0 exceeds my requirements for physical attraction (and that is just the part that shows...good God!).
She was terribly intelligent, funny, generous, sexually unrepressed and adored me.
And I turned her down. Why?
Freewill.
Not determinism. She hit every button both externally and internally.
No, in retropsect a few years back (not now, we are just friends) I wanted to put a bullet in my brain-pan for being so stupid.
But I made a CHOICE.
You could argue that I made the wrong choice, but I made a choice none-the-less.
Both women loved me. Both wanted me for their own reasons. I made a calculated choice to go for the woman that I felt I had long term viability with.
It does not matter that it became, instead a crucible...and a long term viable one. I still made a choice and against my imprinting.
Sure, there were many days (oh it used to be about once a week for, oh, only like...er, 15 years) that I regretted it. But a choice it was and I stuck with it...a choice for 15 years until she ended it.
It's a subtle point, but by the time I met GF v.4.0 I had moved beyond my conditioning (and do NOT give me any B.F. Skinner crap because he is full of it). I was free to make idiotic choices that were not determined by my upbringing or imprinting. Sure I was still influenced, but I had a whole new range of possibilities.
This ranged across all categories...who I associated with, what I ate and drank, how open I was to others and not to some who I had been conditioned to respond to.
Suddenly the world became paradoxical rather than determined.
Is some of it determined? Yes.
For sure.
But do we have freewill within or in tension with that? I believe we do.
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