I vividly remember sitting in a group of troubled parents, each of us lost in a tempest of roiling emotions. Most of us stared at the ground, looking for stability and finding none. A counselor prodded us to open up. A few women – they were mostly women – finally spoke, sharing the ragged feelings that are part of a family dealing with an addict. I stayed silent. I did not like what the mothers seemed to believe: that if they only tried harder, if they could only love more, they could save their sons and daughters.
I did not agree with the counselor either. He offered only the medical rationale that our loved ones were dealing with a disease. I didn’t like the other counselors any better. They preached that only rock-bottom would change our beloved children.
Bullshit, I thought at the time. Excuses. An addict has no free will of his own? He has no choice unless a parent saves him? Or a miracle cure is found? Or until he is shattered like a shipwreck on the rocks?
My son drifted for years in a dark world of abandoned houses and lost connections. I would have called that bottom. Yet he stayed in that world far longer than I thought anyone could. Many more stay there even longer, as a result of addiction or mental illness or both. Even more choose a permanent escape from their madness, descending even further into the depths until there is no way back at all. My son still struggles, as do we all, but he has found a sort of peace, a place in the world. He has so many talents. He has an ability way beyond mine to connect with people. He found a way back, and for that I am profoundly grateful.
Did my son have a choice to rise from the depths while others were damned from the moment they were born? You and I know them or know of them: the young woman who died alone with a needle in her arm; the young man, so deep in depression, that he ended his pain with a handgun. Free will or no will, which is it? It’s a question that has haunted me for over 30 years.
The questions permeated my first book – Inescapable – published three years ago. I didn’t consciously intend it to be an exploration of free will, but that’s what it turned out to be. It won a few awards. It received the whole range of reviews – some good and some not so much (sigh, that’s the nature of putting something of yourself out there). But it didn’t provide me with any answers. So, when I turned to my next book, I decided to tackle the question head-on. I’ve been professionally practicing science all my career. So, naturally, I should tackle the issue with a clear-eyed scientific discourse all about “choice.”
What a fool I am.
I spent the next year digging – reading whatever I could find, interviewing experts, talking to friends and family. Some said you can follow the laws of classical physics all the way down to a single neuron, and every action we take is just a reaction to what has come before. Others say we can’t predict what particles will do on the quantum level, so we cannot possibly predict an extremely complex web of neurons, all with their own built-in chaos. And it is that ocean of chaos that makes room for something other than predetermination – a choice. What I realized is that nobody really knows which view is right. Hell, nobody can even agree on what free will means. For that matter, no one can even define what consciousness really is.
I’ve finished writing the book now. It took three years. It’s not a treatise at all. In fact, it’s just another made-up story. Tomorrow, or maybe the next day or next week, I’ll tell you more. Not today. Today I look back and ask what I have learned. I know that I contribute my share of the chaos that surrounds all personal relationships. I know I’m the source of too many crashing waves. Yet, somewhere on this wild sea, my son and I found a way to cobble together a makeshift raft from the driftwood we grabbed along the way. Somehow, we fashioned a rudimentary sail and a basic rudder. It seems we have choices. I still don’t know if that’s true, but even if it’s only an illusion, I’ll take it.