The Path Untaken

“”So I don’t think I’ll do it.  I’m not going ahead with it.  I guess one day I may regret it, but, you know, I’m scared.”

“It doesn’t feel quite right?”

“No.  It’s not like I’m sure it won’t work out.  I mean it could.  I could be missing an opportunity.  I know that.  But I’m afraid it will become too complicated, it won’t be what I expected, or it could just go wrong, simply.  Then how would I get myself out of what could be a huge mess?”

“You think it sounds too good to be true?  In theory, if all went well…”

“That’s exactly it.  Everything, A, B and C, et cetera, would all have to work out, for it to happen, for it to be successful, for it to be a truly good idea for me to do!  I don’t have that confidence.  And anyway, it’s not a big deal if I don’t do it.”

“Well, you’re right.  It’s always more complicated than you think at first.  One thing leads to another.  If you get into a mess, it’s not always easy to get out of it.  This could be the right move.”

“The right non-move!  A correct decision not to act.  The right omission even.”

“Nobody would blame you.  There will be other choices.  You have options.”

“Right.  Case closed.  But I will wonder what would have happened.  Do you know what I mean?  It’s like there are these huge potentials that exist, these possibilities, at certain moments.  Not all the time but every once in a while.  And it could really go, like, either way, or one of three ways maybe.  It’s completely real that any one of these possibilities that you’re actually thinking of could happen.  You can sort of feel it, if you know what I mean.”

“That’s intense.  But yeah, I know what you mean.  I think it’s only been like that, or seemed like that, a few times in my life.  It’s not easy, I know.  The flip side is that sometimes it seems you have no real choice how your life goes.  I guess it’s because you try to stay on an even keel.”

“That’s because you’re scared, like me.”

“Well, I think as you get older you’re more aware of how things work, you know, risk…”

“Right!  Better risk assessment!  Better at gauging the process.”

“Something like that.  What I thought as a teenager wasn’t quite accurate.  In some ways, I was kind of overly pessimistic, but you know it didn’t turn out that bad.  Which is a relief!”

“I don’t think fate has finished dealing its hand yet.  I get this overriding sense that because things were such a way in the beginning, and like nobody knew what was going on, everything was happening so fast, certain things had to happen and there was no control.  But as we get older and wiser, we get more control.”

“So accidents don’t have to happen.  I’m hopeful.”

“So am I.  Me too.”

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The Crisis of Free Will

“I made a decision finally.”

“Good.  Use what free will you have!”

“Well, it wasn’t easy.  I drew up a whole list of reasons for and against, you know, pros and cons.  I couldn’t make up my mind.  All this thinking, all night!”

“You didn’t get any sleep?”

“A little, but even when I was asleep, you know, it seemed I was still thinking about it.”

“Were there a lot of reasons for?”

“Yes, but without going into detail it’s kind of they all depend on something happening, which hopefully will happen, but I can’t control.  If it happens, then great, all the other reasons come into play and it means certain things must be true and it’s maybe a wonderful idea.  But I’m depending on other people, so I still have to wait.”

“Yeah.  You’ve got some kind of logic going on there.  But it’s all predicated on the one condition being true?”

“Yes.  If it’s false, if it doesn’t happen, then my whole argument fails, and back to the drawing board.  You mentioned free will.  I don’t feel as though I have a lot of free will.  There are only so many possibilities, they’re quite limited.”

“Well, who does have much choice?  I mean, did I choose to be born?  My options are just as limited, but I like to think I have a certain amount of free will, even if it’s just a tiny bit.”

“Define free will!”

“OK.  I’ll use the words ‘could’ and ‘can’.  Out of all the things that could happen, I, as a person of free will, can do any one of them.  I have the choice.”

“All right, but you say ‘person’.  What’s a person?  You haven’t defined what a person is.”

“That’s pedantic.  I don’t know.  It’s the sum total of what makes me, I guess, here in this space of mine.  Anyway, as the professor says, if an academic doesn’t really understand a relationship, he just adds another variable to the formula.  So I’ve added another word.”

“Anyway, whether we have free will or not, you know, whether a person is more than the product of some mechanical process, maybe it’s not even relevant.  We all have to make decisions.  So maybe the emphasis is misplaced.”

“What does that mean?”

“What I mean is, it can’t be argued against that we don’t make any decisions.  Even if some deterministic universe existed, the decision is still real.  What’s important is that we make the right decisions, don’t you think?  That’s why I get so stressed out.”

“Perhaps a decision is some kind of electronic act?  If you could see it all happen, like on a screen, three, maybe four possible choices branching out, and the electricity or whatever it is, flows towards the one with least resistance, something like that?”

“Maybe.  Like a whole navigation display in a science fiction ship.  You’re the ship.  It’s weaving through a network of tunnels or an asteroid field on autopilot.  Every turn is another decision.  Hope it doesn’t crash and explode.”

“Well you’ve depersonalized it all completely.  But a person wants certain things from life, right?  Maybe that’s determined right from the get go and that’s fixed even.  If they had the opportunity, they would do it.  But I’m not someone who wants, like everything, so technically that limits what free will I have.”

“You’re saying if you wanted a lot your choices would be more?  There would be more free will?  But there’s also the number of opportunities.”

“But opportunity is a factor, yes.”

“I think in the end, it all depends on how you define free will, how you define your terms, and we don’t know everything, so everything is a little vague, poorly defined.”

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A Decision Made

Usually there are only a few upheavals in life, starting school, for example, getting a job, moving to another town or another country, getting married and so on.  Thankfully, because if these things happened all the time, we would be completely stressed out, right?  And all big changes involve a major decision, balancing the pros and cons of each possibility.  It isn’t like driving a car to a destination you have to go to, where the immediate decisions all lie in the steering and the speed, where basically there is no free will as such.  If ever there was free will, it is when a momentous life change is about to occur.

Dreading decisions, fear of the future, all stem from the lack of certainty, confusion about potential situations and a lack of good information about what might be.  However, with experience comes a measure of confidence, like a previously uncharted territory becomes familiar.

All the important decisions I’ve made are certainly unforgettable.  This is the course my life took and it’s all I know.  I don’t wonder about if I had made other choices a lot.

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The Return

J. had decided.  It was not an easy decision but one that had to be made.  The past few weeks had seen very little happen but were filled with self doubt and frustration.

It was a moment to be rational, those urges and impulsive acts had to be contained.  There were only a few options of what to do, could the recent past be dismissed entirely?  Was it all an illusion?  To return things back to normal as they were in the far past, that was the plan.

Knowing what she knew, could J. make the right decision?  A flawed choice would mean ruin perhaps or delay at best.  Though physically functioning well enough, her thoughts had turned to fear, the course of her life seemed to be in trouble.

J. was naturally impulsive, this pressure she wasn’t used to, and though the period was brief, it marked a change in her thoughts.

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