Resolved Question

Humans are only free in one specific sense. We have free will. That freedom is a freedom of choice. What we can choose is our actions. In the entire universe, you control only one thing, and that one thing is you, and the only thing about you that you control is that you can choose your actions. Those actions you choose, once taken, become easier to repeat again, and those actions repeated form into habits. Habits are hard to break, habits form into character and character is very likely to repeat those actions by which it was formed.

So the cause and effect of our very limited and specific freedom is that we get to choose our character. We get to choose those actions by which our character is formed. We mold our own character. As we act, so we become. Or another way to say it is that, it is impossible to act a certain way without becoming that way. If we do it, we become it.

That is why Nike's message of "Just Do It" is so powerful. If you just do it, it is easier to do again, and if you do it repeatedly, then it becomes your habit, and habits are very hard to break. Our habits form into our character and we are very likely to repeat those actions by which our characer was formed.

The Taoist have a philosophy of doing nothing but leaving nothing undone. Of action through inaction. Of waiting patiently for the mud to settle and the water becoming ever clearer until the correct action presents itself.

Humans are perfectly equipped to avoid error, because although we are free to act, we have the intellect to control our actions. We have the ability to not rush to judgement, and to withhold judgement until we have all the facts and until the correct action presents itself clearly and distinctly.

We should not squander our limited and very specific freedom to choose our actions, by foolishly allowing ourselves to take imprudent and self destructive actions.