Determinism does not necessitate an absence of free will. Randomness is simply the results of impediments to perfectly executed free will and lack of omniscience. In other words, free will is predetermined only in the sense that there are things you of course want and things you of course don't want.

Compared to other concepts of cause and effect, this is not any more or less negative. If we executed perfect free will with omniscience (and/or constant very high knowledge and/or omnipotence? To a degree? Well definitely if you have omnipotence for sure) and obtained our goals in life without impediment, a deterministic model could still be the case; you would still head towards sex, food, shelter, entertainment, knowledge, general happiness, etc..

Obviously, we don't live in that perfect world, but determinism by no means makes the world an inherently negative place nor a place any more devoid of "free will" (whatever that even means in the end) than any other form the universe could alternatively take while still also knowing you will experience good things, bad things, and most likely destruction of the self body (just the body, we'll say. Not gonna get into consciousness etc. here) as well.

The reason people think determinism is "bad" or "trippy" or means you have no free will is because the net sum (if you will) of their cowardice and weak-mindedness has breached some threshold. I mention weak-mindedness, but I would be careful to note that I think in most cases, cowardice can be either the sole cause, or the driving force behind both, as they become unwilling to think and/or learn. Basically, people get caught on determinism by what I think is basically the same mechanism through which a person with OCD might get stuck doing repetitive rituals. The reason they engage in this obsessive mentality is because they are not used to thinking about determinism, but I don't think this is hard to surmount if you put effort into changing your perspective.

Discuss.