Choosing Who I Have Become
It is Sunday morning. Sunday is a “time-out” day when traditionally we dial back the fever of commerce, that survival game which we all play. Time outs, half times are important as a player, by definition, is the subject of the game, a mind/body point of awareness who agrees to engage in play with others. Playing is voluntary. It would seem that we must work to live, that we have no choice. Such thinking mistaken, a wilful forgetting that we choose to play. Some choose not to play, to “drop out,” to remove themselves from the rat-race. There are many ways of choosing not to play. But it is good to remind oneself that my life, the one that I have is the one that I choose. I can quit this game at any time. A time-out is a acknowledgement that freedom-to-choose is woven into the logic of life, at least for human selves, social beings that must live in community with others so constituted.
I was reminded of this insight by a challenge offered by a friend to another good friend, posed in terms of the dilemma between voluntary and involuntary taxation. I didn’t get into the middle of that conversation. I was prompted though to think about the exercise of freedom as experienced by the joint agreement between all of us to stop for a red light at a traffic intersection. It is not an act that is extracted from us, rather something that we jointly agree is best for all of us. It works. The game goes on. I may drive from one side of the country to the other, say from Fresno California to Mystic Connecticut by voluntarily stopping at every red light signal. The ultimate test of the formal/informal agreement between us is the traffic of New York City. The pact which we’ve made between us makes it possible to cross the Hudson River and drive up to New England. Remarkable!
We choose the life that we have, we – all of us by joint agreement, are playing a long game. Of course not everyone would agree with me. Some fiercely disagree and if they could, would take that life from us by various forms of force, the violence which they apparently understand so well.
Why should you and I buy into the goods which they are selling, the snake-oil of a short cut, the easy-work-around to the vulnerability of my choosing along with you the life that we have and enjoy?
The photo at the top of the post is of the lighting and the accessories that serve the create the atmosphere of Steve’s place, the Chatterbox Bar and Grill in Long Grove. Go for the food!
The photo at the bottom is of the early morning sun illuminating the plants in front of the window here at the Geneva Starbucks.
