Determinism Is Real

Some personal stories

When you think you’re great, then predictably you’ll want to believe that you did not rely on any randomness to achieve your “greatness”, and that it was you alone — you with your superior intellect, decision-making skill, aptitudes, and work ethic — who deserves all the credit. But this is inadvertently a confession of determinism, in that you were blessed to be born with such superiority, either genetically or having developed it through favourable experiences during your developmental window. No matter how you look at it, we always conclude the same thing: that everything you are, every little thought process that makes you ‘you’, is 100% the consequence of random chance. Not liking this reality is still the consequence of the same.

And if you appeal to “free will”, then again, you confess you were somehow blessed with superior ‘will’ or decision-making processes, as well as the freedom to exercise it.

I’ll keep repeating the same disclaimer: Accepting determinism is not a denial of accountability. ‘Free will and unaccountability’ is a persistent false dichotomy which I write endlessly to demolish.

---

Here are a few personal stories to illustrate my point:

A person very dear to me had recently mentioned her long-dead grandfather, who happened to die blind. I regretted asking whether he was born blind or had become blind at some point in his life. I always ask this question concerning blind people, probably because I tend to want to empathise, to imagine what it’s like to be born without knowing what sight is, or to have experienced it at a young age, only to lose it later. And my question is, which is worse…

Anyway, she told me that he hadn’t been born blind, but that he had lost his sight due to a horrible accident. Apparently, when he was a child, he developed an eye allergy. The doctor prescribed drops, and his mother confused a bottle of glue for the one the doctor gave them. You can probably feel pain just by reading these lines right about now. I was shocked to hear that story. Even in middle age, even after having seen, heard of, and experienced so much shit (perhaps even more so), this story got to me. Imagine a child having to experience that pain and horror, and not only that, the feeling of insecurity and betrayal by his mother, even if it were an accident (I hope it was just a negligent accident and not some twisted “devouring mother” syndrome. Despite certain twisted parents who deliberately mutilate their children for whatever sick reason, I’m going to assume this was just a stupid accident. But still, having to experience that and live a life as a debilitated dependent, given a wife to marry and have kids with, kids who would identify with the disability of their father, and the dysfunction of a family where, instead of a strong, supportive husband and father meant to instil safety in children, there was someone who needed care from his children.

How can anyone claim that that experience hadn’t determined and condemned this person’s — and his children’s — lives? How can anyone not recognise the bad hand this man and his family were dealt, who was forced to live a life of darkness, not because of some incurable disease, but due to a simple mishap that could have so easily been avoided? Imagine his frustration having to wrestle with that agonising ‘what if’ all his life…

---

Another story.

Recently, I was at a friend’s house doing our group therapy, discussing our childhood trauma over alcohol and sushi. One thing I did appreciate was the compassion he showed when I shared a specific instance of fatherly abuse — when my cruel father forced me to ‘see a psychologist’ just so he could instil in me the shame of the stigma of the mentally diseased, which he loved doing. And why? Because at some point I lost my motivation of being a straight-A student, and he was furious, because my imperfect school grades were (in his own words) ‘embarrassing him in the eyes of the teachers’; being a high-and-mighty doctor, and all.

My friend was in the same class as I was at the time, and he never knew what was going on with me back home in an abusive household. When I recently told him this story — decades later — he said that, if he were my older brother, he’d beat the shit out of my father for being that way. Sadly, my older brother was (and still is) a cheap, deranged knockoff of my sadistic father.

That instance of trauma was psychological abuse. He “took me to the psychologist or psychiatrist” at age 13 just to prove to me that “I was crazy”, so he could keep humiliating me, to demolish my self-esteem completely. He forced the stigma of “mental patient” on me at a sensitive, impressionable, and character-defining age. And all because I went from straight-A student to not so diligent, but still a much-better-than-average student. He was furious because my less-than-perfect grades humiliated him in front of the teachers when he went to take my school report. It was all about him. So he transferred his shame onto me, the only way to mitigate his shame-based trauma.

Consider that, a few months earlier, I had received an honour in front of the whole school for being a top student, and my mother asked him to say ‘bravo’ to me. You know what he said? He said to her right in front of me (always speaking about me to others but never to me): “He could have done better. He still got two Bs during the year. If I say ‘bravo to him’, he’ll stop trying. He needs to do better.” Father of the year, ladies and gentlemen.

Anyway, my friend said I shouldn’t let my past define me, and I agree. Sure, after decades of failed therapy and somewhat effective self-therapy, I am at least more aware of my traumatic psychodynamics and more independent of them. But in the same 5-minute window when we moved to another topic of conversation, my friend said that, at his company, whenever he sees a job-hopping, patchwork CV, he immediately ripped it apart because it showed someone who doesn’t have direction.

You see, you might choose not to let your past define you, but no one will do you the same courtesy. When you are a late bloomer, all people see in your past is missed opportunities, an accumulation of failures, and a lack of achievement compared to what your age demands. So, they will deny you opportunities and close their door at you, and thus, what’s possible for you to achieve decreases more and more.

If you start late, you’ll go even slower because everything will be against you — you’ll be inhaling everyone else’s dust as you run. You’ll spend so much energy trying to explain to people why you had a late start that they’ll perceive you as a “whiner” or someone looking for victimhood privilege and handouts. But that’s not what you want — all you want is some credit for enduring your misfortune, and perhaps not to be condemned for your misfortune on top of having to endure it. That’s all you want… not handouts, but at least not dismissal from uncompassionate condemnation.

I told my friend that, even though I had a stable job, he would have ripped my CV if he had seen it. As he looked for words to protect my emotions, I told him it was OK and that I didn’t blame people for condemning the unfortunate. We don’t have a choice. It’s like physical beauty. No one deserves to be born ugly, just like no one deserves to be born beautiful; the dice just fall where they fall. But just because someone was unfortunate enough to be born ugly doesn’t mean we should force ourselves to find them attractive; they just aren’t. And we never chose what defined beauty, let alone our involuntary response to beauty. And beauty is more or less objective. Yes, beauty and ugliness are objective. The only subjective element here is ranking beauty when comparing instances of beauty. But beauty is beauty regardless.

---

The more you fail, the more you are likely to keep failing.

You accumulate proof of inefficacy. You build up a burden that weighs you down. And the fewer opportunities you get, the less accomplished you’ll be as time goes by, and the more harshly you will be judged by people — rightly so.

You see, even someone with the empathy of this friend couldn’t resist the natural instinct to condemn someone with a bad course in life. And who could blame him? He was right to do so. Life is too short to give people second chances; there were reasons why they missed the first ones, whether they were at fault or not. And why would anyone give you a second chance when he can give it as a first chance to someone else who hasn’t proved a failure once already? I know it’s tragic, but so is life.

So you see, once you miss the boat, you understand that the only dignified thing to do is give up, dissociate, and wait for the simulation to end as you flood Substack with your negativity.

“Oh, but I know this late bloomer who made it,” says the objector. Did he make it, or is it a cope? And was he really unfortunate to begin with?

Even the (supposedly) greatest underdog story ever told, Rocky, was in fact an ode to sheer luck and determinism. If you remember, Rocky was astronomically lucky enough to get a shot at the champ just because the champ happened to find Rocky’s nickname entertaining.

Who wouldn’t make the most of such an opportunity? How easy it must have been for Rocky to work out hard just to go the distance, not to win. And how low must have been the champ’s motivation to work out for a meaningless fight with a nobody? This is why the champ, Apollo, won only modestly. Rocky had been a loser up until he was randomly given the right motivation to work hard. Consider that, even though Rocky already had a love interest, even she wasn’t enough to motivate him to work hard.

Nobody works hard if there is no clear payoff on the horizon. Even the most deludedly faithful have some arbitrarily assigned “evidence” before they choose what to believe. But for Rocky, the opportunity to fight the champ — not to win, but to get beaten up and go the distance — was something that would skyrocket him professionally and personally. And he’d finally get some self-esteem. And this is what happened: a marginal victory for the champ was seen as a defeat. For Rocky, losing but lasting was a victory. And the reverse happened to Rocky when he first fought Clubber Lang; Rocky just didn’t have enough motivation, nothing to fight for, since he already had it all.

The Rocky story is a testament to how our circumstances define our outcomes, and that even our “free will” is the consequence of determinism.

---

“It’s all up to you”, and “your past doesn’t define you”, say those who will rip your CV and throw it in the trash after a split-second skim-read, simply because your career path didn’t show a clear direction, or because you’re a “job hopper”. And all this before even giving you a chance to explain, or before giving you the benefit of the doubt of being a late bloomer or just being a bit late acquiring direction. And what does a “job hopper” mean, anyway? Someone who doesn’t take shit or who has standards for himself? I guess that’s a bad thing in the eyes of an employer who intends to fuck you.

“It’s not external circumstances, it’s your bad choices!” accuse the people who ironically lack the intelligence to comprehend that their self-defeating claim is a confession of their inherently deterministic decision-making skills. And since they lack the IQ to understand how self-defeating their claim was, their skillset doesn’t include the random blessing of better decision making... So, it’s only random luck and opportunity that made them “succeed” (succeed in their minds, at least).

Even if you decide to “improve” and tell yourself you “freely willed” it, you still rely on randomly stumbling upon insight, inspiration, motivation, purpose, and the ability to discern potential in your efforts — assuming they outweigh the demotivational influences. Those are not up to you at all. You are at the mercy of chance.

So, even if you do get clarity, direction, and healing late in life, it’s just too late, because you have no momentum, and no one will give you the benefit of the doubt of a second chance. And this is especially true when there are so many up-and-comers who haven’t yet tainted themselves with the baggage of wasted years and failure.

You might forgive yourself, but no one else will. And when you’re ostracised, there’s not much you can do, free will or not.

This is not victimhood; this is assertion and standing up for yourself for the credit you deserve.

I know I didn’t deserve better. I just didn’t deserve not deserving.