Pure Will

I’ve been wondering about the border between one’s will and one’s matter-of-facts you accrue each step. Like am I writing this because I will it, or it’s because of mere inertia from all the steps prior? I’m not necessarily talking about determinism vs free will here. There’s free will (in my view), it’s just about how often you exercise it or drift in the previous exercisms of free will, the downstreams, whether from other people or yourself. I’m sure there’s a specific term in the free will debates I can pull out here, but I don’t have the will for it and I like using my own language even if it’s dilettante “rediscovery” and vexation.

Anyway, one’s will vs one’s facts. For example, a habit is drifting along a decision one made however long ago. I’ll fold my shirts this way, and that’s how I’ve always done it. You could argue I’m still choosing to fold the shirt this way, but it seems all automatic, and wasn’t risen to consciousness to question it. It’s no longer questioned; you’re having peanuts after dinner. The same with nervous ticks, and you discovered that if you twist inward and breathe harder the nervousness goes away. It becomes automatic. It’s certainly a “fact” of your existence.

In contrast, today you’re deciding to make your first YouTube video. Unprompted, and though you could consult some of your “downstreams” like small influences and inspiration, nevertheless you never seriously considered it. Until today, of course. Obviously a conscious decision at the end of it. This is what we’ll file as “pure will”. And you consciously decide to make the next one, and the next… until it’s a “matter-of-fact” you accrued. Why would you ever not upload?

So when was the last time you genuinely exercised your free will, instead of relying on all the dispositions and habit and influence accrued? A large enough fracture in your “timeline” to yield new pastures.

And I’m wondering about this because whenever I have to struggle through some “travels” conversation, it’s like it was all predetermined. It’s like all the things I could say were stamped into place. I am just following the script. There is nothing I can add. Somewhere along the line I talked so much that it’s all automatic, matter of fact, beautiful weather and I have no say in it, but the other day I’m having a weird self-awareness about the lack of it.

The places traveled through me, and handed me the souvenirs for sentences that I repeat to let others know I did, in fact, get these from the official vendors. And I got more souvenirs and things I could dress as my “opinions”. They’re getting vintage. Still I’ve been avoiding almost all phone calls and friends and even having conversations because I don’t want to exchange souvenirs. Because all conversations feel like matter-of-facts and that doesn’t work for me anymore.

I want transfigurement.

There’s a reason for every artisan forge, maybe. Do you want opinion or undividuated essence as it crawls and devours each of us? Give me the anvil and we’re getting amesthyst shades, warped walkways --- tell me how to strap the right shoelaces for aether bridging.

I want things that change the game.

Electricity changed the game.

Cars changed the game.

Funny money changed the game.

Computers changed the game.

Smartphones changed the game.

What’s the next ruler? I don’t think it’s these LLMs, honestly. Give me some noclip in octane relevance; meditate in your room for a thousand hours until you can poke me through the fourth dimension.

What’s your next play? A new frontier. Can a mind dissolve already?

Letting the essence mangle one into the next ruleset. There’s no more money where we’re heading, but maybe there’s alchemy.

Not in a deus ex magicka, none of that.

I am waiting for my body to stretch so thin, and dissolve, and I no longer inhabit twisted muscle but instead the null between the walls, out and beyond. Why can’t I have the consciousness for two bodies anyway?

Let’s play the game and change the game… not get souvenirs.