Choosing a Supportive Environment
Free Will Reveals that Environment is the Place of Free Choice
Free Will finally explains, after a heated argument, that the environment is where Free Jim can exercise his free will.
Free Will: Your environment.
Free Jim: What environment?
Free Will: We have no choice in anything in our lives. If I enter a certain environment, it immediately brainwashes me with its ideas, its desires and its values. I’m walking down the street and I see an ice cream billboard, advertising this mouth-watering, sweet, sweet chocolate cookie ice cream, with these small, rich crumbles of chocolate cookie between an ice cream sandwich of soft, smooth, melting double-choc ice cream; and some girl with really white, perfect-looking teeth biting into this dark chocolate cookie, with the crumbles perfectly embedded into the soft ice cream part of the sandwich.
So I see this and suddenly want that ice cream.
Free Jim: Now I want one too dammit!
Free Will: I’ve got a whole box of them upstairs!
Free Jim: Mmmm.
Free Will: There is still a very narrow passage where we can choose something; where we can still determine our self and our independence, and these are not just words.
Listen. We can choose an environment which will dictate our priorities, desires and influences so that they are the optimal ones for the goal I want to strive for.
Free Jim: But what goal is there left to strive for? All of my goals and anyone’s goals are just “I want this pleasure over that one!” What’s the point of having a goal?
Free Will: The thing is, once we become aware of this pleasure-pain matrix we’re in, we are also given the opportunity to strive for a goal which is above this matrix. And with this goal—to rise above the state of “running after pleasures which aren’t ours, and running away from pains”—comes an environment which is there to support our progress to this goal.
I am telling you that you can build yourself above this level of existence, to feel a completely different life inside you. Today, there is an opportunity to do this. Do you understand how great this concept is?
Free Jim: So if I choose my environment anew, then I’m like some “wonder wheat” which can choose what type of soil it will plant itself in. Great! Then it can determine what attributes and characteristics will develop in it, and in what way and to what extent. Amazing! There’s just one problem…
Free Will: What?
Free Jim: Where do we find such an environment? Where should I go? Tell me! I don’t even feel like going to Thailand anymore after this conversation. What for? Just to follow the program of running after whatever pleasure stuff is pre-programmed for me to do.
I want to know what’s bringing me this pleasure! The source! The source of pleasure! Where do I find it? Where is the environment I can go to discover it!? Tell me!
Free Will: Tell you? Didn’t you want free will before? You’re free to choose! Now that you know what you’re really looking for, you can search to find the environment developing with that goal in mind. Follow your heart, and it will lead you to the place where you will develop according to what you want.
This conversation between Free Jim and Free Will is based on the two sections, "Pleasure and Pain" and "Four Factors" in Baal HaSulam's article The Freedom, and in Rav Michael Laitman's article Freedom of Will. Also, check out the following video on the topic of free will, "Freedom of Choice":
VIDEO: Freedom of Choice (15min) - Freedom of Choice graphically illustrates how the egotistical search for freedom that has motivated humanity’s historical development is leading us to a dead end, and must now be replaced by a shift to altruistic development. Produced by ARI Films.
