still we climb
I have a friend who is deeply troubled by the various scientific findings and philosophical schools of thought that suggest that, ultimately, "free will" is an illusion. It's an understandably upsetting concept: our brains have worked hard to create that illusion, this idea that there is some independent "I" out there that steers the ship of self towards the shining future; it forms a cornerstone of many ethical frameworks--if nothing else seems deeply unjust to mete out punishments to those who, ultimately, did not have a choice in their behavior. I think he thinks I'm joking when I suggest that the way around these conundrums is to simply keep on as if nothing has changed.
There's a song on Sean Nelson's album Make Good Choices called "Born Without A Heart" which concludes with:
The friends you knew and loved are gone / You can't depend on anyone / We might be soldiers on a long march to the grave / But we don't have to live that way
"We don't have to live that way" is the song's refrain, a repeated exhortation that we always have it in our power to live well: be bold, be kind; the world doesn't deserve your surrender.
I just finished watching FilmJoy's recent video, "The Boy, The Heron, & Hayao Miyazaki" (it's good, you should watch it), and in it there is the constant framing of making art as a mountain to be climbed; that the reason Miyazaki has kept retiring and then coming back to make more movies is that he can see no other sensible way to deal with a world that is so full of pain and loss than to continue creating, to continue climbing.
There is no shortage of intolerable truths in this world. And sometimes those truths upend the foundations we thought the world was built on. It's rough out there. And while it isn't easy--it will never, can never be easy--there is nothing else for it. You don't have to live that way. Keep climbing.