Crossroads
Every moment in life represents a crossroads, something I think many people tend to forget. As we slog through the scheduled tracked lives that we have created for ourselves, we often forget how much of what we do is ultimately a choice. The situation becomes complicated when we examine our choices against the backdrop of the rest of reality, and how the environment around us demands certain choices, and is simultaneously responsive to the choices we have and will make.
The idea of choice itself is quite fascinating, but not something I tend to dwell on. A base assumption of many of my thoughts is that humans are self directed, and are ultimately capable of determining their own fate/actions. To believe that we ultimately lack choice seems first fatalistic to me, and an ultimately dangerous thought process. Indeed, if we lack self-determination, then society is organized around a kind of mass insanity. Simple things like the justice system, or any of a number of other ideas, that presuppose the choice of the individual, and the consequences that follow, make much less sense in the absence of choice. My acceptance of choice is based some deeply held conviction that choice is vital to the concept of an undetermined past, rather (I hope) than on a blind embrace of the reality that others have chosen to get through life addressing.
Really, I find the idea of every moment being a choice, and the product of choices, to be an empowering idea. It drastically increases the control one has over life, though it simultaneously places a large portion of responsibility for one’s current state of being on oneself. Naturally, there is such a thing as blind chance, and one cannot make decisions with absolute knowledge, so there is no perfect responsibility, nor is there perfect control. Still, it seems an important acknowledgment that I have noticed has a tendency to be lacking, especially when one gets all wound up in a tense, or emotionally trying, situation. There is a natural tendency when things fail to go one’s way, to say that the dice were loaded, and that there was no winning. Sometimes this is true, and sometimes not. In the face of tidal waves of social movement, or the occasional inauspicious lineup of chance, there can be only minimal control, only minimal power to be wielded, especially because knowledge cannot be perfect. However, most instances that trigger such complaints, even though they may be internal, have a strong basis in the prior choices made. Thus, if one wishes to change one’s circumstances, the question becomes, what are you willing to do to pry yourself loose from your current existence. Every choice has gains and losses, sometimes not immediately obvious, but usually to get a thing we want, we must sacrifice. What are you willing to sacrifice to have what you want most?
Of course, as I have obliquely acknowledged, there is always the uncaring, and sometimes caring, world, trying its hardest to enforce a certain set of choices on you. It is true that reality as defined by your current environment has a set of choices that seem ideal, generally those would be the paths of least resistance. In order to exert real power, one must be willing to avoid those paths, to strike out against what people want and expect from you, to challenge your environment at every turn. It is certainly tiring work, and not comfortable in the slightest. Most of the people I know with the courage to actually attempt this, even if only for a little while, live lives that are not altogether comfortable. Their desire to exist beyond the norms of society, to exceed the choices that are offered to them makes them obvious targets for, well, just about everything. To take a stand, to challenge the world around you with every step, seems to me to take more energy than I possess. This is why the wisdom of the idea of choosing one’s battles carefully seems like a deeply intelligent idea to me.
To acknowledge every moment as a choice is something very similar to the idea of living life deliberately. Realizing each moment as a moment when you could be doing something else, singing, learning to play the maracas, sleeping, or any of a number of other things. The choice is what is important, and ultimately what defines each of us for the people we are becoming at every instant.
The idea of choice itself is quite fascinating, but not something I tend to dwell on. A base assumption of many of my thoughts is that humans are self directed, and are ultimately capable of determining their own fate/actions. To believe that we ultimately lack choice seems first fatalistic to me, and an ultimately dangerous thought process. Indeed, if we lack self-determination, then society is organized around a kind of mass insanity. Simple things like the justice system, or any of a number of other ideas, that presuppose the choice of the individual, and the consequences that follow, make much less sense in the absence of choice. My acceptance of choice is based some deeply held conviction that choice is vital to the concept of an undetermined past, rather (I hope) than on a blind embrace of the reality that others have chosen to get through life addressing.
Really, I find the idea of every moment being a choice, and the product of choices, to be an empowering idea. It drastically increases the control one has over life, though it simultaneously places a large portion of responsibility for one’s current state of being on oneself. Naturally, there is such a thing as blind chance, and one cannot make decisions with absolute knowledge, so there is no perfect responsibility, nor is there perfect control. Still, it seems an important acknowledgment that I have noticed has a tendency to be lacking, especially when one gets all wound up in a tense, or emotionally trying, situation. There is a natural tendency when things fail to go one’s way, to say that the dice were loaded, and that there was no winning. Sometimes this is true, and sometimes not. In the face of tidal waves of social movement, or the occasional inauspicious lineup of chance, there can be only minimal control, only minimal power to be wielded, especially because knowledge cannot be perfect. However, most instances that trigger such complaints, even though they may be internal, have a strong basis in the prior choices made. Thus, if one wishes to change one’s circumstances, the question becomes, what are you willing to do to pry yourself loose from your current existence. Every choice has gains and losses, sometimes not immediately obvious, but usually to get a thing we want, we must sacrifice. What are you willing to sacrifice to have what you want most?
Of course, as I have obliquely acknowledged, there is always the uncaring, and sometimes caring, world, trying its hardest to enforce a certain set of choices on you. It is true that reality as defined by your current environment has a set of choices that seem ideal, generally those would be the paths of least resistance. In order to exert real power, one must be willing to avoid those paths, to strike out against what people want and expect from you, to challenge your environment at every turn. It is certainly tiring work, and not comfortable in the slightest. Most of the people I know with the courage to actually attempt this, even if only for a little while, live lives that are not altogether comfortable. Their desire to exist beyond the norms of society, to exceed the choices that are offered to them makes them obvious targets for, well, just about everything. To take a stand, to challenge the world around you with every step, seems to me to take more energy than I possess. This is why the wisdom of the idea of choosing one’s battles carefully seems like a deeply intelligent idea to me.
To acknowledge every moment as a choice is something very similar to the idea of living life deliberately. Realizing each moment as a moment when you could be doing something else, singing, learning to play the maracas, sleeping, or any of a number of other things. The choice is what is important, and ultimately what defines each of us for the people we are becoming at every instant.