There are some truths, that are fundamental, that are non-negotiable. Words have difficulties explaining them. But they can be understood. All you need is sincere observation, and sincere questioning.
One of them is this.
You don’t do anything. Nobody does anything. Things just happen.
Why do you think you do anything? Who is it that does these things? Is there a choice, when things happen?
Understand this, there is no choice in existence. Things just happen. And you are not the doer. You cannot do anything.
Look inside you. Look at the decisions you make. Could you have decided anything else? Is it not the causes, that do the effects?
Web of events, this universe is. A million things in history causing one small thing now. One small thing now contributing to million things happening in future. But no one did anything.
The reason you believe you are the doer is, because you think. Thoughts create your ego and ego feels like it is the doer.
But truth is truth, ego is not the doer. No one is the doer.
No one is there to do anything.
Ego is false, you are false.
“Free will died a long time ago.“
Additional notes to people who see this through the lens of physics:
Beware physicists.
If you look at physics, this was the philosophy of it. The universe had no choice.
But then came, Quantum Mechanics, and people lost their minds. Things started seeming to be non-deterministic.
Does this suddenly, enables choice? A free will of the universe?
Well, no.
This is well explained by Max Tegmark in this beautiful and simple paper. But I’ll write a poor explanation in my words here:
An instrument, does not collapse the state of object in superposition. Since, the instrument is also quantum mechanical. It is also being observed by the object. It is in superposition as well. Both instrument and object in the superposition of states. Suddenly, the instrument records one state of object, just like object records one state of instrument recording that one state of object.
These two entities are just updating their own personal memory, but from outside perspective, there is no non-determinism that happened here. Both were in superposition of two states. That means both has separate existence, where they mutually update their memory based on their world.
Yes, I was talking about Many-Worlds Interpretation and no the universe does not suddenly split. The universe exists as superposition of all states. We the individual entities just keep updating our memory.
Everett understood quantum mechanics. Max Tegmark understand quantum mechanics. And Einstein wasn’t wrong when he said:
“God does not play dice with the universe.”
Albert Einstein