Choice

I'm approaching an opportunity that has set my mind thinking (amongst many other things) about belief, coercion, free will and how these philosophical ideas collide with education and (after) careers.

I know! It's pretentious but I can't control how I absorb some experiences. Let's set up a hypothetical scenario to ease things:

You are presented with an opportunity to pursue a career you've always wanted. You will (once passing a series of 'tests' which are within your capabilities) have the chance to take responsibility over your life's path.

Absorb this scenario! Close your eyes and imagine it is happening. All the obstacles that stopped you from doing this before are removed. Money? Taken care of. Time? It will be made available. Confidence? Fill yourself with confidence and belief.

You don't doubt that you can accomplish much and more here... but much and more in which direction?

Maybe some readers have always known what they would do if this happened to them. Perhaps they've always known or always dreamed so strongly that they've made it happen already. For them the scenario is redundant.

Let's pretend, though, that you (like me and many others) have not previously believed strongly enough in something to make it happen.

What do you do? The only real challenge set before you is choice. Of all those ideas you've brewed in daily dissatisfaction, of all the plans you've laid using your ample gifts, which do you begin with? If you make this first choice an excellent one, you'll be in a position to realise your entire reservoir of ideas.

But you've to choose one, now, or lose yourself in an ocean of possibilities. You'll end up back where you are now...

The first choice is becoming more and more important in your mind. You clam up. You don't think there's anything you can do, yet. You need more time to decide. Faced with this kind of choice it's probably common to freeze.  A large choice set can put a person off choosing at all.

Time to put my dusty University rhetoric aside: This hypothetical exercise is a something I'm facing now.

I'll be honest; I'm excited and I'm prepared for hard work - but nothing good comes easy. Gaming has taught me well!

I'll be more honest; I did freeze for a time, then went through an internal adjustment period.

Now I'm wondering why. I'm also wondering why I didn't know take this opportunity before? It's been there for some time. What's more, I've known it's been there for some time. I've even been led right up to the "door" before.

I found an answer for that easily enough: It has taken me a period of time (and help from others) to begin to think that this door was for ME.

More questions now - What blinkered me? Why did I not believe this door was for me?

I've believed that I should be happy with my lot. More than this, I've believed that I deserved it. Where did this belief come from?

Back to University training once more (it's crucial to realise how much we approach problems based on what we've been told/how we've been trained when younger): I've distanced myself from the questions posed by these thoughts and I can see an answer which may prove to be correct: coercion.

I've been coerced. I involuntarily think and act (or more accurately: don't act) in a certain way. I've existed for a long time by making small choices in life: not big choices.

I can see where other people and other social systems reinforced this false belief in me when young. I can see where I've reinforced it myself.

It's something I'll think more about, on and off, as I try to handle multiple projects and my daily work as the year rolls on. I might even blog about it again, if I find time (and overcome that other belief: "No one reads your blog!"

For now I'm putting the belief aside and I hope that, unfettered in this way, I'll one day be in a position to help others free themselves of such limitations.

A poem! A wedding!

A pal marries himself off tomorrow and I'm working on a ridiculous card/gift. No real value but my care and time. 


To plot the story of this gift I needed some rough paper and so I picked up this notebook and browsed the jottings inside. 

I found an old poem in this old notebook. It looks like I was practising and decided a recent tattoo was inspiration:


Imprint the body granting rare insight,
the soul - an artist - paints a fleshy plight.
A cycle like a life that death retorts,
Inscribes it's mark on body; my report.


The back of this notebook contains a ripped, glossed and folded magazine page from a French airport magazine. It shows one of my favourite photographs in the world Le Stryge by Charles Nègre: 

Combined all these clues somehow make me feel that life is not to be controlled. The most one can do is preserve what one enjoys and pursue what one loves.

Also one should create as many sentences with indefinite, formal pronouns as one can. It will make one sound more important than one is.

I don't feel hopeless or in any way negative after this brief mental journey. In fact I feel refreshed and at peace. Like a big fat Buddha.

On with life and the recollection of clues we leave scattered in our wake!