By Corey Haim
Hi,
You may know me from such things as the movie 'Lost Boys' and being dead today. What you may not know is that I wrote this post for One Year In Texas before I perished. Well, I guess you do know if you're reading this but still, you'd be surprised at how thick some of these One Year In Texas readers are.
You may be wondering why I chose to address the OYIT audience and from beyond the grave. I don't have any answers for that, I'm dead remember? Thick skulls... Anyway I wanted make one last meaningful statement before my legacy is lost in a haze of The Two Coreys reality TV marathons. I want to take this opportunity to apologize, not for myself, but for all of humanity. I am not personally responsible any more than you. But we are all equally guilty. People are cruel, evil creatures. That's what sets us apart from other living beings. They don't chose to cause terror even when they do cause terror. We can't help but chose to take the actions we take. Or at least that is our perception - that we make choices. But this is a false perception. Our actions are as predestined as any worker ant driven solely by pheromone scent. Our scents are more sophisticated of course, but are no more meaningful.
What I mean to say is that from the time you are born your brain, your perceptions, you, are shaped and influenced by external events and stimuli. These first reactions build a beautiful system of unique synaptic pathways that ultimately give the impression of a fully constituted human, someone with the ability and power to make independent choices. But your choices and actions and everything about your person-hood are predetermined by what influence has come before. Your thoughts, your morals, even your feelings are wholly determined by the past.
In this moment you have no more independent control over what you do than an ant even though it feels as though you do. Some view this as tragic. But in reality, what benefit would be derived from it, what would it even mean, being an independent being not influenced by the past? The notion is as meaningless as Kierkegaard saying that we can't understand God's logic. If we can't understand it through our own logic, then it is meaningless. If we were able to be in a state where our actions and thoughts weren't predetermined by prior events we may as well just be a rock.
So, it is not tragic that humanity lacks free will. But it is tragic that we exist in the first place. I no longer do. I'm sorry. So long, suckers!
