Tsl
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The Burden of the Void: Ontological Freedom, the Illusion of Destiny, and the Agony of Self Creation
Human beings have always found comfort in the idea of destiny. To believe that every event happens for a reason is to believe that life follows a hidden architecture, one in which every success, failure, and tragedy belongs to a greater design. Essentialism offers this security by suggesting that human beings possess an inherent nature or purpose that exists before their choices. Existentialism presents a more unsettling possibility: perhaps there is no fixed path waiting for us at all. Perhaps the future does not exist as a completed timeline, but is continuously created through the choices we make. Even the existence of a higher being would not necessarily require a predetermined future. Human beings may be shaped by forces beyond their control, but they are not bound to a fixed destiny; because each choice alters the future that follows, existential freedom is simultaneously empowering and terrifying, granting individuals the power to create themselves while forcing them to bear responsibility for what they become.The Comfort of the Blueprint
Essentialism offers humanity something psychologically powerful: certainty. Philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle believed that things possess an essential nature. From this perspective, human beings are not simply accidents moving through an indifferent universe. There is something fundamental about what we are, whether that essence is understood as a soul, a natural purpose, or a biological nature.The belief in a higher being can strengthen this view. If humanity was intentionally created, it may seem reasonable to assume that every person has a specific purpose. Life then becomes less about creating meaning and more about discovering the meaning already assigned to us. Morality can also appear more stable under this worldview. If human beings possess a fixed nature, then right and wrong may exist independently of personal opinion.
However, the existence of a creator does not necessarily prove the existence of a fixed timeline. A higher being could create conscious individuals capable of genuine choice rather than characters following a completed script. If every future decision already existed as an unavoidable event, then freedom would become an illusion. Responsibility would also become difficult to justify because no person could have acted differently.
A more convincing possibility is that the future is not a single road but a constantly changing field of possibilities. Every decision closes certain paths while opening others. We do not choose the circumstances into which we are born, and biology undeniably influences our instincts and limitations. Yet influence is not the same as destiny. Human beings exist between immanence and transcendence: we are shaped by our material circumstances, but we also possess the ability to respond to them and choose a new direction.
Anguish, Freedom, and Bad Faith
Jean-Paul Sartre’s claim that “existence precedes essence” rejects the idea that human beings arrive in the world with a completed definition of who they must become. We exist first and gradually construct ourselves through action. Under this view, identity is not simply something hidden within us waiting to be discovered. It is something continuously created.This freedom sounds liberating, but its psychological consequences are severe. If our choices genuinely influence what we become, then we lose the ability to blame every outcome on destiny. We can blame circumstances for limiting our options, but we cannot always use those circumstances to deny that choices remained. Freedom therefore creates ontological anxiety: the disturbing realization that our lives are fragile, uncertain, and partly dependent upon decisions whose consequences we cannot completely predict.
Sartre describes the attempt to escape this responsibility as bad faith. In bad faith, a person pretends to possess less freedom than they actually have. It is psychologically easier to say, “I had no choice,” than to confront the possibility that another path existed. Destiny can therefore become more than a spiritual belief; it can become an excuse. If everything was predetermined, then every failure was inevitable.
Yet absolute freedom would be equally unrealistic. No human being chooses their genetics, birthplace, childhood, historical period, or many of the events that shape their life. We are not blank slates existing outside reality. The most accurate understanding of freedom lies between complete determinism and unlimited choice. We cannot choose every circumstance, but within those circumstances, our decisions influence which possible future becomes real.
This is what makes freedom both empowering and terrifying. It is empowering because the present does not completely imprison us. A person can reject expectations, change direction, and transcend aspects of their circumstances. But the same freedom is terrifying because it removes the comfort of believing that someone or something else completely determined the outcome. The power to choose creates the burden of responsibility.
The Absurd and the Creation of Meaning
If there is no fixed destiny, another problem emerges: what gives life meaning? Albert Camus described the Absurd as the conflict between humanity’s desire for ultimate meaning and the silence of the universe. Human beings naturally search for explanations, yet reality does not always provide them.This can lead to nihilism, the belief that if no universal purpose exists, then nothing matters. However, this conclusion assumes that meaning is only valid if it is assigned from outside the individual. A life does not become meaningless simply because its purpose was not predetermined. Meaning can be created through choices, relationships, commitments, and values.
In fact, self created meaning may carry a unique form of dignity. If a person acts morally only because they were programmed to do so, their goodness contains no genuine choice. But if a person has the capacity to act differently and still chooses responsibility, compassion, or courage, those values become expressions of the person they have chosen to become.
This requires a kind of teleological suspension: abandoning the demand that life must move toward one predetermined final purpose. Instead of imagining existence as a journey toward a destination selected before birth, we can understand the process of living itself as the creation of purpose. Each decision changes both the person making it and the possibilities that follow.
The future, then, is not necessarily a place already waiting for us. It is something we participate in creating. We are never completely free from circumstance, but neither are we merely passive objects trapped within it. Human existence takes place in the tension between what has been given to us and what we choose to do with it.
The Verdict on the Human Spirit
Human beings may possess biological tendencies, spiritual dimensions, or qualities that could be called an essence, but none of these necessarily require a fixed destiny. Even the existence of a higher being would not prove that every decision and outcome has already been permanently written. A world containing genuine freedom would instead contain multiple possibilities, with each choice altering the future that can follow.This freedom is neither purely a gift nor purely a curse. It liberates human beings from the idea that they are permanently trapped by a predetermined identity, yet it also forces them to confront responsibility. We cannot control everything that happens to us, but where genuine choice exists, we must acknowledge our role in what follows.
To be human is therefore to stand between destiny and the void. We inherit circumstances we did not choose, yet we continually make decisions within them. There may be no completed timeline waiting for us and no single blueprint dictating everything we must become. The future changes with every choice, and so does the self.
That is the burden of freedom: there is no guaranteed path to hide behind. But it is also the source of human possibility. If our lives are not completely written in advance, then failure is not always final, identity is not always permanent, and the future remains open. We are not merely discovering a destiny that already exists. Through every choice we make, we participate in creating it.
A Side Note on Looksmaxxing
In a way, looksmaxxing is one of the most literal expressions of the conflict described in this essay. You do not choose the genetics, bone structure, or circumstances you are born with. That is the hand you are dealt it is unfair. But the existence of constraints does not mean that every outcome is predetermined.
There is a difference between acknowledging reality and surrendering to it. You may not be able to become anything imaginable, but neither are you necessarily condemned to remain exactly as you began. The choices you make whether in appearance, health, knowledge, character, or life more broadly alter the range of futures available to you.
Perhaps the real lesson is neither “you can become anything” nor “it was over from birth.” Both are comforting absolutes. The more difficult truth is that we are given a starting point, not a completed destiny. What can be changed, and what you choose to do with that possibility, remains part of the burden of creating yourself. -Tsl
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