Freedom, Oh Freedom
How inevitable every detail of my life has been, how channeled by prior events, some partially understood, most just opaque happenings that appear dumb, still no less impactful upon my life. Fortune and misfortune are how I would label the entire saga. I know that with some effort I could construct a list of “good” and “evil” turns in my recollection of happenings. There is no need. A reader likely would not care enough to warrant rummaging in my basement of memory to compose two mirrored-opposing lists to persuade that cause and effect, uber alles.
But if this were true absolutely, no cracks or gaps, how could I even reflect upon my situation, to characterize the whole, as similar to a piece of driftwood borne along by the river of time? How could I possibly be aware? Would not I be the same as every other mammal? A dog appears to live moment to moment, aware only of the discomfort of hunger and other biological needs. There is no reflection, no concern about a “right” choice.
Moreover there is my consciousness of time, that the present for me is a concentration of prior “choices.” I am every path taken. But I wonder if those forks in the road were really choices at all? Time like a river runs one way, always in a downstream direction. That much I know, I see it and register the sadness of it all.
I am reading slowly, pausing, pondering Slavoj Zizek’s book, Freedom – A Disease Without Cure to help comprehension of my conundrum. The puzzle involves more than just me. The journey of every individual member of my family is entangled within this puzzle. Here is a passage that I read several days ago. I marked the paragraph for more reflection, and so that I could quote the lines in this blog post.
The past is open to retroactive reinterpretations, while the future is closed since we live in a determinist universe. This doesn’t mean that we cannot change the future; in means that, in order to change our future we should first (not “understand” but) change our past, interpret it in such a way that opens up towards a different future from the one implied by the predominant vision of the past.
That is why radical acts of freedom are possible only under conditions of predestination: in predestination, we know we are predestined, but we don’t know how we are predestined, i.e., which of our choices is predetermined, and this terrifying situation where we have to decide what to do, knowing our decision is decided in advance, is perhaps the only case of real freedom, of the unbearable burden of a really free choice – we know that what we will do is predetermined, but we still have to take a risk and choose what is predestined. – page 60
Somehow, the more I ponder my course, the stronger the feeling, the intense desire to offer an apology to our three children. Fate is a bitch!
Could there be a tune? There is. Desperado by The Eagles.
