Dr. Robert Forum

So, over my time here, Doc, I've seen a lot of your spiritual ideas. Some I thought made sense, others I did not, and after you so bluntly told me that I would walk away with what I would walk away with (a decision, in retrospect, that I am glad you made despite the bruising to my ego) I simply stopped worrying about it. As is the case with most of my revelations over the years, the most important ones hit when I wasn't looking.

Specifically, I have gained some insight as to the nature of choice and free will: Namely, that they are illusions. In order to get this far, I first had to grasp what the ego was and see it for as much. This plays with my logical wiring to result in a pretty intense experience. I can only imagine this is what you were describing when you said the world would fall apart.

It was Hexi who managed to put things in an order I could comprehend. Namely, I learn from my experiences. As a child, I am a sponge, growing and becoming who I am today. I am who I am today because of what happened to me back then - and I had no choice or control over that. Nor did I have choice or control in the genetics and biological aspects of myself: To put it bluntly, the nature and nurture of myself have both been completely not of my doing.

I make decisions and choices based on my nature and nurture. My impulses come from my history. Any impulse I have is the result of my history - even the impulse to deny my impulses. And since the actions I take now create the situation I am in tomarrow, this cycle perpetuates and none of this has been within my control since the root and source of my actions and decisions, priorities and so forth, are all outside of myself as well.

Thus, 'free will' as I have understood it is in fact a lie.

All of this makes perfect sense to me. I cannot argue against it (I have tried, as is my way). I have taken time and mulled it over. This is reasonable, logical, solid. I have come to this conclusion without doctrine or theology, without what I would consider faith or any other replacement for my precious logic and reason. I have finally arrived at this conclusion in a manner that I can grasp and accept.

The thing about this is that my problems revolve mostly around being petrified that I am not in control. Control (dependant quite naturally upon free will) is how I shield myself against bad things happening to myself, and due to experiences I have had in the past, lack of control makes me feel vulnerable which in turn I am unable to handle.

Irony of it is that should I manage to emerge from the rubble of my world shattering, the fact that 'shit happens' (quite litterally, as it turns out) and I am unable to stop it relieves the pressure of constantly being on vigil. I have no reason to be afraid because fear is pointless in the face of inevitablity. Accepting that I am powerless over the situation leads almost directly to being unafraid.

But there is a large, massive pile of shit between me and being unafraid:

I only vaguely grasp the idea that there is no point in being unafraid of the inevitable. While intellectually I see that fearing that which will happen no matter what is pointless, that doesn't seem to remove the fear of it happening. I am tense. I am still afraid. The path to serenity is to embrace my helplessness - the very thing I am absolutely petrified of. I recognize that my ego has it's grip on me and I recognize that this helplessness is not happening to me, but rather the emotional manifestation of me, but somehow I am still choking when I attempt to swallow these facts.

I have no idea how to make that step. I suspect that, in reality, you cannot tell me how. I can only ask if you have insight that might give me a foothold to work with. I had not considered that there might be a step between revelation and acceptance. I have always simply witnessed, reasoned, and learned. This time, however, there's a middle step of letting go of that which I know to be false.

I've never had to do this before. I feel... lost. And that is terrifying.