Free Will or Otherwise

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About a week ago, I remember hearing about the "free will" and how "I'm old enough to decide on my own". Ever since I heard that, I began thinking about it. What is my will? What can I do for my own interests? If my will is free, then should I use it for those who are like-minded while at the expense of others who aren't?

All of these questions seem to have given me time to think. But then, I began to experiment with this "free will" of mine. First move I made was cutting contact with my friend, saying that because of my free will, I have decided that in order for someone to be my true friend, they must not only be like-minded and have good faith and kindness to me but they also must not question their gender and body.

At first, it felt emotional and I cried for doing such a thing but after I felt regret, I felt relief. Days passed by and I didn't feel much regret afterward. Maybe it wore off temporarily? Could it come back to haunt me? Depends on my actions. Though actions do have consequences indeed. However, I didn't feel any more sad or dull. I felt like I never knew this person in the first place and that I never met them in the first place.

Is it because of my mindset and me being introverted? Is it that I am condemned to living a life without social purpose? Was I not compatible with that person? Maybe. After all, they didn't like how my mind wasn't able to drift so easily to the other side, even after they persuaded me to accept their male gender identity despite the biological contradictions that they still have for they didn't medically transition.

But then again, I felt regret for not being able to understand the pain and suffering caused by their gender dysphoria for I was too stubborn with my closed mindset. But no more. For both of us are free. I am free from the stress and pressure I faced from something I couldn't accept despite my hard efforts, and they are free as they no longer have to worry about dealing with a person like me in the future. Both of us have freedom as a result of my decision to cut the cables at once. Our chains were broken and our friendship became history soon to be forgotten without documented memories.

If this is what "free will" has done to me right now, then so be it. Feel free to criticize me. My will and I can control such will that I have so that no one feels lesser and everyone can be on the same level while also having their free wills.

Depends. Did you make that choice or did social conditioning make it for you?

Free will is an illusion. Humans, like almost all primates, are tribal. We feel biological pressure to subjugate our individual thoughts in order to find a place within a tribe.

That's why when you are raised in a place, odds are really good you will talk the same way, dress the same way, practice the same religion, and have a million other habits which are similar to the people around you. "Culture" is tribalism, and tribalism is the opposite of free will.

When your tribe expects males to dress and act one way and females another, anyone who doesn't conform makes the tribe anxious.

I know a woman who, I am told, was born male. I can't imagine her male. She really impressed me with her views on society. I admired her work ethic and pride in the bakery she ran. She had a great sense of humor and a bitter wit. If I hadn't been willing to set my instinctive tribal discomfort aside, I'd never have had the privilege of knowing her, and let me tell you that would have been a loss to my life.

Which appears more free to you? Submitting to social anxiety, or growing your life in spite of it?

Gentle wisdom from Steve Earl: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJqjRo8CB-0

This is not an act of Free Will, as Free Will is a concept that is incompatible with reality.

The fact is that our decisions are governed by a multitude of material factors, such as the neurochemistry and wiring of our brains, the way each person processes information, and their ability to act on this processing of information relative to their desires and preferences.

For instance, lets take your transphobic bigotry for example. If you lived in a society that didn't give a flying flip about people choosing to identify with the gender their brain is wired towards, you probably wouldn't feel any hostility towards your friend for identifying as trans man. But instead, because of your upbringing and the prejudiced influences your mind has been exposed to, you valued upholding a bigoted notion that trans people should be shunned simply for who they are, over your friendship. You were unwilling to accept your friend for who they are.

Now, I can't hold you personally accountable for having a brain filled with prejudices that causes you to be a horrible friend who treats people like a disposable condom due to your own prejudices, as that is a problem with society, your upbringing, your predispositions, the influences you were exposed to and a mix of other factors but you are still that person who treats people like trash. if we rewound the clock to when you first met your "friend", and absolutely nothing changed, you will still wind up being the same bigoted jerk in the end who fails to accept their friend.

Have you ever asked yourself how much easier your life would be if we had a society that didn't force people to live by a strict social standard and allowed everyone to be accepted for who they are? If the answer is yes, then you should ask yourself why you only want empathy and acceptance for yourself, but not empathy and acceptance for people who have other wirings of the brain? You, like myself, i imagine, want people to accept that autism is a completely different way of viewing the world from Neurotypicals. Well, why is it so hard for you to understand that conversly, someone being Trans means that their brains have a completely different way of viewing themselves?

To be trans, one has to be on a spectrum between Gender Dysphoria or Gender Euphoria. If Someone is Dysphoric, they actively feel immense discomfort with being perceived by themselves or others as a gender that their brain doesn't accept. If someone is Gender Euphoric, that means they actively feel immense pleasure with identifying with and doing activities of the opposite gender.

There is nothing wrong with this. Just imagine if people denied the existence of autism and simply said you, me or anyone else on the spectrum are just 'normal' people who are lazy, inept, or any number of dehumanizing remarks? That's what you did to your "friend". you went right along with the dehumanization's that society has levied against Trans People, that you would not want society to apply to yourself, and that's despicable, even though free will does not exist.

On a final note, It is deeply ironic that you said to your "friend" that they must "not only have good faith and kindness", while you don't even uphold these standards to yourself. What you did was in fact deeply cruel, extremely prejudiced and outright discriminatory. Them being kind and friendly to you didn't even matter, because you wanted to be prejudiced towards them, and that's exactly what you did.