I watch around me, and most people are not as qualitatively different from bugs or field mice as they might suppose. They are governed, yes, by a combination of psychological programming and instincts, but they are on auto-pilot. They never stop and ask what they really want, who they really are, and then set about getting these things–I would argue affects are what are worth the pursuing–and living out their own being as well as they can.
The free will discussion does not interest me, other than to comment that CLEARLY most people use only a fraction of the freedom that is plainly available to them on some level.
Our jobs on this Earth is to disrupt the patterns we were given, to divert our life energy from the trough into which we were thrown, and into something qualitatively better. Few see this, and fewer still realize it.
This, at any rate, is my belief at the moment.