Possession

I will do such things—

What they are yet I know not, but they shall be

The terrors of the Earth!

—Shakespeare, King Lear 2.4.321–23

Do I possess free will to do

Unknown things, which shall be by their

Doing known? Could philosophers

Some day obtain that fancied stone?

A dog may have a kennel

And never own a home.

So, no, you don’t possess free will—

But it possesses you.

Leszek Kołakowski says Bertrand Russell quipped that Lear’s words [epigraph above] summed up the philosophy of Nietzsche—who was the prophet of the coming era.

Sunday, September 6, 2026