Vonnegut on Free Will

"Where am I?" said Billy Pilgrim. 

"Trapped in another blob of amber, Mr. Pilgrim. We are where we have to be just now - three hundred million miles from Earth, bound for a time warp which will get us to Tralfamadore in hours rather than centuries." 

"How - how did I get here?" 

"It would take another Earthling to explain it to you. Earthlings are the great explainers, explaining why this event is structured as it is, telling how other events may be achieved or avoided. I am a Tralfamadorian, seeing all time as you might see a stretch of the Rocky Mountains. All time is time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanation. It simply is. Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I've said before, bugs in amber." 

"You sound to me as though you don't believe in free will," said Billy Pilgrim. 

"If I hadn't spent so much time studying Earthlings," said the Tralfamadorian, "I wouldn't have any idea what was meant by 'free will.' I've visited thirty-one inhabited planets in the universe, and I have studied reports of a hundred more. Only on Earth is there any talk of free will."

- Kurt Vonnegut, Slaugtherhouse Five

Do You ALWAYS Train Plugged In?

...as time went on, I started to give up my headphones for training runs as well. I am typing this, obviously, staring at a screen. The computer is also playing music, which I enjoy as I write. When I finish writing in a little bit, I will go have myself some lunch, and of course I'll play some music or news, and maybe even look at another screen. After lunch, I'll go rake some leaves or do some other tasks, with headphones firmly in my ears; I'll enjoy music  over dinner, and then finish my day by watching another, larger screen with some content that, I hope, can command my entire attention.

If I don't leave my headphones behind when I run, I wouldn't spend a single minute of my waking life free from input. 

I have a friend who wears headphones on long solo runs because, he says, "I can't spend that much time alone in my head." I disagree. He can, and he should. Spending that much time inside one's head, alone with the voices and the bats hanging from the various dendrites and neurons, is one of the best things about running, or at least one of the most therapeutic. Your brain is like a duvet cover: every once in a while, it needs to be aired out.

From The Incomplete Book of Running (p. 65) by Peter Sagal