Do we really have a choice?
Thank you to those who've added comments... With all due respect to Calvin and Hobbs, I'd like to continue the current discussion of choice for just a little longer...
Each choice we make creates a ripple effect that shifts our world in both subtle and significant ways. Within that altered context, we have a new set of options from which to choose. So do others. A lot of personal suffering comes from not fully grasping this very basic concept. We nostalgically hang on to past options, wishing they were still available. Or we make up options that never existed in the first place. We become sad over how things could or should have been. We become angry at ourselves for not having chosen wisely. But these are ways to grasp at a past that's gone. There is no going back.
Accepting the here and now is difficult because we think acceptance means we have to like the current situation. In fact, acceptance is really just an acknowledgement that "our current world is what it is, and it is not what it is not." It's a statement of fact, nothing more. Judgements like "good" or "bad" no longer come in to play. Without judgements, our expectations also lose their power. If something plays out as we had hoped, it played out as we had hoped. If it doesn't, it doesn't. That's it. We are freed from the need to evaluate the past to determine our happiness now. And when the past no longer controls our current mood, our current mood itself becomes just another choice. We can choose to be happy right here, right now, no matter what our context is, no matter how we got here, no matter where we think we'll be tomorrow.
Suffering occurs when reality and expectations don't align. Acceptance eliminates judgements which consequently gets rid of expectations. That leaves us only with reality, and no suffering. There are cynics, of course, who'll argue that without suffering passion will also fade. They're wrong. True passion is really just a choice. It is independant of whether or not the object of passion is achieved. If I'm passionate about human rights, I will continue to be passionate about it even if I woke one day to a world that is absolutely just, humane and equitable. Or, I may choose to apply my passion to another issue. I just don't have to suffer over my choices anymore, so I'm freed to make new choices more powerfully than ever.
4 Comments:
We were speaking of beliefs. All beliefs possibly could be said to be the result of some conditioning. Thus, the study of history is simply the study of one system of beliefs deposing another. And so on and so on and so on. A psychologically tested belief of our time is that the central nervous system, which feeds its impulses directly to the brain—the conscious and subconscious—is unable to disern between the real and the vividly imagined experience. Is there is a difference? And most of us believe there is. Am I being clear? For to examine these concepts requires tremendous energy and discipline. To allow the unknown to occur and to occur requires clarity. Now, where there is clarity, there is no choice. And where there is choice, there is misery. But then, why should anyone listen to me, or should I speak, since I know nothing?
(quoted)
That’s an interesting macro view of history but I don’t agree. Few belief systems are ever fully deposed. As one comes to greater popularity, others fade into the shadows, but never completely go away. They bide their time. That includes various concepts of “reality”. If, for example, Aristotelian rationality is the vogue in a given society, does that preclude mystical understandings entirely? Of course not. Mysticism will remain, even if it must do so as a fringe element. And since no practitioner of any belief system is ever 100% consistent in his or her adherence and behavior, there are plenty of openings for marginalized ideas to make a comeback. History is more like a pendulum than a linear accounting of events.
I merely quote the Swami from my favourite movie, although there is surely some wisdom in “Where there is choice, there is misery.”
this is all because of those spider-man II posters, isn't it?
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