Hard to say, isn’t it? This is a subject that has been debated by people much more learned and smarter than I. Still, I’m a fairly intelligent adult human being and I do have some views on this subject.
Don’t expect some sort of long technical dissertation about brain size, layout, DNA, or any of that. The physical or metaphysical origins of what makes separates humans from animals isn’t my point. I”m interested in what we, as people, can do with what we have.
What doesn’t make us human beings.
When I was a kid I remember someone saying that tool use is what separated us from the rest. Except that other animals do use tools. Then, in a remarkable display of people in love with their own theories, there were those who said that using a tool to make a tool is what did the trick. This article does a pretty good job of dispelling the tool use views.
Opposable thumbs? Well, others have that, too. Our closest relatives, the great apes, are on the list. But so are opossums. Koala. Panda bear. Even a species of frog. Next.
Walking upright, perhaps. Maybe. Same with cooking food. Both of those were possibly involved in helping to create us today. I’m more interested in the results, not the evolutionary process.
So what do we have?
In a word: agency. In two words: free will. We get to decide things for yourselves. I can wake in the morning and decide to have decaf instead of regular coffee. I have no idea why I’d do such a terrible thing but the option is there.
Normally, I set an alarm for 4:00 AM. On days I work that’s a good time for me to have plenty of time to get to work on time. On days I don’t work it’s a good time for me to get up and write or do research. And on some days, like this one, I hit the snooze button a couple times. Other days I don’t. The point is that it’s up to me. Everything from tiny little decisions like whether to lay in bed another ten minutes to what I want to do with the rest of my life.
The snag.
The problem, of course, is that most of us don’t really use our agency that much. We just kind of float along, going with the flow, moving from one situation to another. All created by others or chance. Who also probably aren’t really doing it on purpose. We give random chance far more control over our lives than we should. We make excuses.
- I have the worst luck.
- Life’s a bitch.
- Everything I try turns to dust.
- It’s not fair.
- Others started with more than I did and I can’t catch up.
Someone gave us a shiny new Corvette and we just let it sit in the driveway. 
Define agency or free will.
There are all kinds of philosophical ways of looking at things. You can talk about morality, guilt, sin, what have you. But let’s start simple. I wanted to do some writing this morning. I do that best in the morning. So I set an alarm for 4 AM. That was a choice.
Then I woke up at 3:30. I chose to get up then rather than go back to sleep and wait for the alarm. That was also a choice. And one I may regret later but I made it and I’m rolling with it.
These are very small choices and they do count. The larger choices, such as picking a college major, starting/ending/continuing a relationship, or deciding on a career mean more but a great many large choices are set up by the smaller ones.
For example, I currently weigh too much. There was no big decision I made to be fat. It’s simply a series of small choices made throughout the day that don’t end well. The donut, the soda, the ice cream: they add up to excess calories and therefore pounds.
Moving back to Arizona, on the other hand, was a deliberate, major decision. I’d lived here in the 80’s and had always intended to come back. Some things mentioned kept getting in the way. I had a girlfriend I cared about. Jobs I liked. Moved to be closer to my kids for their teen years. Things finally came together in 2016 and I decided to just head out from Illinois.
What to do with this.
That’s up to you, now, isn’t it? Isn’t that the point? You get to decide what you want to do. In my previous example it’s all up to me. Fewer donuts. Less ice cream and soda. At times I do well with that and I lose weight. There are other times I don’t do so well and I gain some back.
Unlike some others, I have no particular medical condition that causes this. This is a result of choices I’ve made. If I wish a different result I need to make different choices.
Most of us, I think, do things on most days that we should not. Some times it’s deliberate; most of the time it isn’t. We simply don’t stop to think of the longer term. We act on impulse with no regard for where that will lead us. This is our error.
Conclusion
Fortunately, this sad state of affairs is under our control. We can fix it. I can’t say I have any specific advice about this because I’m still trying to figure it out myself. I do know one thing: I’m an adult human being and my choices are my own. It’s been said better so I’ll leave you with this.
Invictus
William Ernest Henley – 1849-1903
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
