A Failure in Consideration
One of the nagging questions is specifically on the idea of free will, and the question of how much control do we have over our thoughts and actions. I sense that my discomfort towards the idea of a lack of a free will is worth exploring.
This is in part because the concept of free will is very closely connected to the idea of Moral Responsibility. Speaking for myself, I’m less likely to feel anger towards someone who has hurt me emotionally by accident vs a person who has hurt me deliberately. To give you an example, If I was insecure about my body image and someone remarked on my weight, I would be hurt but not angry if I sense that the person was being insensitive and unaware of this fact. However, if I confide in someone my body image issues, and 2 months later I meet this person for lunch, during which he comments that I should “eat more”, I would certainly be more likely to feel anger in this scenario.
Of course, there’s a chance that the person in the latter scenario may have simply forgotten that I have had this issue, and his comment was simply unintended to hurt me. That’s not troubling. The troubling bit is that its not possible to fully read someones intentions. As you well know, in this scenario, I could let them know that their comment was hurtful to me, and he could reply with an apology, stating that he has forgotten that I had this issue. But also, as you well know, human beings have the ability to lie, and then it really comes down to the issue of how much you trust someone else. There’s a chance that this person is being manipulative, and hasn’t really forgotten. He just takes joy in making someone else feel insecure.
I have very little patience for manipulative behavior and I find it very difficult to forgive. But when I think of the concept of free will, and advances in the fields of Psychology and Neuroscience that contests the idea of personal agency, it actually allows me to feel much more sympathy for someone who is deliberately hurtful and manipulative.
The short of it is that, very often, people who hurt other people emotionally are themselves hurting, and its that hurting that predisposes them to hurt other people. When I look at this way, there isn’t much choice for the manipulative person to be any other way at all. It can be argued that he can learn to manage his pain so that he can become less hurtful, but the drive to change is itself out of his control. I begin to feel more sympathy and less anger for this type of people when I look at it through this lens.
Following up on this, I often find myself disgusted when I feel that people have taken advantage of my kindness. But when I look at it through the lens of the structure of my brain, I find myself seeing my kindness as a gift that I am lucky to have. I feel lucky that regardless of whether I am being taken advantage of, I am able to experience joy- its very often wonderful to help someone along by going out of your way to make their day better. It would be rather sad if I were predisposed to experience joy only when I hurt other people.
Of course, knowing this, free will and control is still an ongoing question. Despite my knowledge that people might be wired this way, and we might not have as much control over our behavior as we like to assume, I still find myself being vindictive on occasion, and feeling the need to retaliate with anger.
There is a certain beauty in being mindful and conscious of how I wish to react to manipulation and someone trying to hurt me. Regardless of whether I am free to choose, just simply being mindful of the options of how I respond makes me feel more at peace.
Being aware of making a conscious choice- I believe that is true freedom.
As to how we should help people along- and what it means to help people, that itself is a difficult and complex question. One thing I’ve found that’s consistently productive is to simply stop and listen to someone. I believe that everyone, regardless of what they have done, deserves to be listened to and understood. Not everyone has the patience and ability to listen without judgement, and learning to consciously cultivate this helps me sleep at night.
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