Determinism on a summer morning in the Midwest

Ibn ‘Ata’ (d. 922) declared that [rida] is “the heart’s regard for what God chose for the servant at the beginning of time, and it is abandoning displeasure.”
                        —Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim, “What Is Rida?”

1.
There’s no such thing as free will and that’s bad, or so says
Stephen Cave in The Atlantic. I guess that explains my decision

to read his whole grim article this morning, when I had plans
to walk around town, mail a package, buy a retirement card