I feel a certain affinity with the existentialists. They get the absurdity of being alive, the lack of objective meaning, the simultaneous wonder and fear at what seems small and ordinary, and the resulting anguish of it all threatening to tumble us beret first into the void.

Existentialism conjures up Paris. Their ideas populate the banks of the Seine, the benches in the Jardin des Tuileries, the dusty lecture halls of the Sorbonne and the stalls of bitter smelling coffee houses. Existentialism is a philosophy but it comes with paraphernalia too. The ghosts of Beauvoir, Sartre, Merleau Ponty, Camus loom large.

Lack of objective purpose might sound rather depressing and futile but existentialism has vigour and life. Seeing the familiar as unfamiliar shows us the world anew, and subjectivism allows us to create our own meaning. It is anything but misery. It’s almost reaffirming.

But I’m forgetting something. Freedom. Ah, freedom.

Free will is essential to the existentialists. It’s the cheese to their cracker, the Ant to their Dec. For them existence precedes essence, or simply put, we are born free from constraints of any ‘human nature’ and as such have the freedom to act as we wish. Much of the anguish of living, according to Sartre and co, comes from the weight this freedom places on our shoulders, the responsibly of which is solely our own.

But here’s the thing: I don’t believe in free will. I believe in incompatible determinism which means despite my actions feeling free, they are in fact rooted in my experience, my genes, my inherent nature, etc. Sartre said, ‘Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.’ Can I partake of this if I don’t believe I am free? Is the freedom a prerequisite or is the illusion enough?

Because on some level I hate choice. The way that most of us do even though we don’t realise it. I detest the overwhelming selection of cereal in the supermarket threatening to derail me even though I know I came for the Coco Pops. I hate trying to separate the ‘right’ decison from the ‘wrong’ decision in terms of how it will affect me, others, the future, whether it will inspire deep regret (i.e. opting for Raisin Wheats). I hate the fact that you can’t abstain from choice, that it is thrust at you constantly and doing nothing is still actively choosing ‘no’. I could certainly never entertain the idea of a job where the lives of others depended on my actions.

Is it really believable to suggest that I’m not wracked by the same indecision and responsibility and guilt because I believe that on a deeper level I am constrained? Of course not. So strong is the illusion then, we still suffer its effects. Put more plainly, ‘Anxiety is the dizziness of the illusion of freedom.’ Not as catchy I know. It wouldn’t fit on a t-shirt. Certainly not on a mug.

Free will is wrapped up in identity. You are ‘Free to be you,’ and the anger against that idea inspires comments such as, ‘I’m not a robot or machine with no choice.’ But this seems mistaken. As I see it, free will would essentially eradicate the individual. Without acting according to my unique mix of inherent nature and environment what would make my actions specifically mine? To have free will is to lose the self. Freedom is a fool’s goal, a mirage. It belongs to nothing and no one, like objectivity. It seems odd to me that the existentialists recognised the impossibly of objectivity but not the issues it raises for choice.

So, we shouldn’t mourn over missing agency rather rejoice in our humanness, our subjectivity, our ability to be in the world in the only way that we can. Nor should we expect to feel the anguish of living any less I’m afraid. Existentialism’s symptoms don’t rely on free will, merely the illusion of it.

So, can existentialism still be relevant to a determinist? Can I, without fear of reproach, sip coffee on the left bank? I think so.

(Note: the anguish and anxiety here is that of being alive and being human. It doesn’t necessarily refer to the heightened and specific anxieties of mental health.)