Why was I like that? Oh yeah.
When I was 13 I was talking to a 13 year old friend of mine about my weird need to do things before I was societally allowed to do them. I had this fucked up bucket list that I wore on my sleeve. Give a blowjob by 14. Lose my virginity by 15. Drugs and alcohol by 16. He asked me why I felt this way. and I didn’t have an answer for him. The closest thing I could think of was hormones and bad parenting. Maybe a pinch of “We live in a society.”
I wasn’t trying to rebel against my mother. I loved my mother more than anything, and I’ve more than made up for my teenage antics since. My puberty was a tornado between being a quiet baby, a sweet child, and a caring adult. My foundation was still sweet throughout my teen years as well. You definitely could match my actions to the wild teens on Maury, but you would have never seen me running out on a stage in a crop top, flipping off the audience, and saying “You don’t knooow me.” I wasn’t being wild for theater. I was just genuinely wild.
So one fine day on LSD I was looking at my hand and I realized the meaning of life, but I couldn’t write it down. Since I couldn’t write it down, I don’t remember it. I can tell you that it’s spherical, but what are you going to do with that?
I also realized that the only thing that comprises who you are and what you do is your DNA and everything you’ve ever been exposed to from conception until today, neither of which you have had any control over. Control is an illusion that is necessary to form a healthy society because without punishments or rewards, what incentivized us as a species to maintain order and strive for more? I can’t unknow that.
The only time I have ever told somebody this without horribly pissing them off was when I was 15 in an open garage with a kid who was fascinated with my rack, and therefore letting me smoke his weed. He took a deep inhale, held it as I told him my little theory, and then said “you just invented a fact.” I just invented a fact, guys!!!
I didn’t. I didn’t invent a fact. I eventually opened up a history of psychology textbook and realized that Pre-socratic philosophers Heraclitus, Leucippus, and later Aristotle himself thought of this. You best believe I impressed the hell out of my Professor with my knowledge of the general theory, though. It’s called determinism.
So, what do we do with this? Well, everyone who has debated this with me has gone into a hysterical tirade of “choice, free will, free will, choice.” The other fact that I realized is that even if I know and can’t unknow determinism, I still have the illusion of choice programmed into me. I still feel guilt. I still feel pride, and I understand why both are there. I experience them fully. Then maybe once a week I’ll remember that free will is an illusion before diving right back into the human experience.
Even the most staunch determinists of today recognize that they can’t function mentally with present knowledge that they are not in control of every one of their actions. It’s a theory that has it’s place in discourse and has for millennia. It isn’t going to change anything. The ego reigns supreme. So, now what?
Well I guess at least I can explain to you why I was a wild teen without deep retrospective psychoanalysis. My genetics, which I didn’t choose, and everything I had ever been exposed to from conception until that point, which I also didn’t choose. Oh yeah.
