And it doesn't end there either. The biggest obstacle in fulfilling our free will is not society, law, ability, or anything else, but ourselves.

Why do we hurt the people we love the most? Why do we end up smoking and drinking and bullying, even though deep down inside we perhaps don't want to? Why do we quarrel and argue even when we might agree with the one we are arguing with? Okay, maybe the last one only applies to me, that one isn't so common.

I believe it is due to the theory of reflexive action. Just like if someone punches you, you would most likely block or punch back. Similarly, our life proceeds with our learned "reflexes" that we execute, with us little realizing that it is not the result of our conscious actions and wasn't what we wanted to do.

I love my mother the most, yet I argue and quarrel with her the most as well. No conversation ends without at least one of us getting annoyed. Same is with the few "friends" I have. The jibes, the insults thrown, the name-calling we use, its not always coming from our conscious thoughts. We are simply so used to doing it, that it comes as a natural reflex. My friend can't resist calling me names, and I wouldn't resist giving back a quite sharper retort, even if the moment before I was thinking that he was a good friend.

Trapped in our fake reflexes, we progress through life, wondering why it never goes as we wanted it to be, why is everything perfect in our conscious mind when we plan it, but all goes wrong when we enter reality. I wonder why I snapped at my mom's small request to clean up a bit, I wonder why I feel disgust when I see the freak even though I pitied him last night, I wonder why I couldn't tell my best friend to get lost even though I was and am quite bored of him. I wonder why my mom gets furious even when she doesn't want to get angry. But now, I know. And now you know too.

How many times I have thought about quitting my job, going underground, not forcing myself to be aboveground where it is not my natural place. Yet, I am wedged firmly in my routine, and go to attend to life like every other human everyday. Surprisingly even to me, I behave normally in society, and conform to the social norms above the ground. I am but a common clerk, who has too much time on his hands and too much of his mind working at the night, and too little of it in the day, than what is needed for him.

I wonder how can one change these 'reflexes'. Perhaps they are part of our personality, and changing them would require us to change ourselves. Or perhaps changing them would change our personality. But one thing is for sure, to be aware of these reflexes, and working towards bringing them closer to our true free will, the one that operates consciously, would be like a program working towards breaking or modifying its algorithms. With these 'reflexes' and traits, we humans behave just like predictable programs, including I who accuse everyone else of doing so as well. A complex program it is, but nevertheless, it is a program that saps our free will. And to operate on my own free will--not on anyone else's will, or on what society or logic or self-interest dictates, not even what my instincts or reflexes or unconscious mind suggests, but of my own conscious, free will--that might be a viable goal and purpose for my life.

Ha, despite writing all these words, I couldn't tell you a story. I couldn't give you a narrative about anything or anyone. But I can give you a substitute. Look at the story around you. Thousands of humans roam around us, either without purpose or motive, or with a deluded one, wherein the source of that delusion is themselves, or others. There are thousands of observations that can be made, either for learning about them and ourselves, or like me, just for the fun of it. The story that we live in, build upon it, or observe others building it. The latter is more fun and much more easier. The former is quite difficult, most of us are cast into the default role of side-characters anyway, and its better to watch others rise up than rising up yourself. Think about seeing a rocket flying up or being inside it, versus building it from scratch. The former is awesome, the latter is for those tools of society called work-lovers (engineers?).

And thus, I probably break a trope, by ending this book of failures with failures. The protagonist failed to build a narrative, even a fake one; the protagonist failed to resolve issues with their mind and with the world, the protagonist failed to go on the journey he wanted to take or the journey he was supposed to take, the protagonist lacks heroism and is lost in his own theories, wanting to go underground to ponder over them (and not for his laziness of course, to suggest such a thing would be absolute truth, which doesn't exist in this world). 

I would like to lie that these notes don't end here, that there are more chapters locked in my mind. That would be the absolute truth. However, for you, here the aboveground man ends. The best end is here, at the lucky number 7.  All hail the palm trees, and death to calculus and algebra. Farewell.