I happened to meet this person who has been suffering from anxiety for a while now. He has just not been able to get rid of freewill from his mind. And it seems to him that subconsciously the thought is always there despite him trying his best to move past it. Actually anxiety have to be taken head on and one needs to move past fearsome situations by facing them but the thing is that in his case he can’t really do that as the real situation can only happen at some time in future after specific set of events take place. He is continuously anxious of it but logically and understandably based on his past experience in similar situations.

He has been trying all that he can to get past that anxiety feeling, various remedies, etc. The point is that is he really having freewill? Firstly he is not able to will enough so that the anxious thought does not occur to him. He cannot not think about it.

Secondly, the fear in him makes him scout through the varied remedies. Remember mind is geared up for your survival, so wherever it sees a danger it will look to escape by becoming hawk eyed. So he has tried all remedies based on his best understanding of what could work. Again, here does he have freewill? He is being forced to go into a mode of searching for remedy and everything that he tried out was based on specific criteria that he was looking for. It is about bridging a gap between a preconceived set of notions that he has with the external triggers that he come across. How did he get that notion? Genetics, environment, peers, conditioning, knowledge acquired, etc.

If you go deep down into the specifics of the behavior that you exhibit in the outside world, you will finally be pulled deeper into the way your brain has developed its notions. And as you go further, you will end up with the law of physics where in each external trigger has influenced the smallest molecule and arranged them in a way that creates a liking and disliking within you for all the entities that exist. Your likes and dislikes are only a representation of these adjustments that have taken place within you but over which you had no control.

And hence, where was freewill?