Your Choice

1,157 words, 6 minutes read time.

“Do we have a choice in the role we play – or allow ourselves to be played? How would one demonstrate that one has the ability to choose a role, and how would that differ from Fate, predestination, God’s Will?”

Jim’s question from his comment in yesterday’s post warrants a specific answer because of a recurring theme I have noticed in review of many of my posts.

I have repeatedly placed the onus for many responsibilities back on the viewer:

The person in the mirror is at fault when it comes to these breaking points; alternatively, that person is the same one who will be the solution for this growing problem.

Opinion: Violence, Legislation, and the Person in the Mirror

Look

In

The

Mirror.

It’s up to the person staring back at you.

Compiling Thoughts

You will get through this protracted panic and everything which will come with it… and on the other side, you will face a completely different – and, possibly – better person in the mirror. You just need to realize the power of impulse control in defeating, not enabling, the fear that is so easily catered to.

Impulse Control, Fear, and Hope

You get the idea.

I cannot, nor should anyone, have control over the agency of the individual. What I might think is best for you may be counter to what you truly need. Direction versus consequence. I specify this because the heart of the question of what “choice in the role we play – or allow ourselves to be played” puts the responsibility on the individual in their consumption and participation of information and events. Personal responsibility.

A quote comes to mind:

The only rules that really matter are these: what a man can do and what a man can’t do. For instance, you can accept that your father was a pirate and a good man or you can’t. But pirate is in your blood, boy, so you’ll have to square with that some day. And me, for example, I can let you drown, but I can’t bring this ship into Tortuga all by me onesies, savvy? So, can you sail under the command of a pirate, or can you not?

It could have been sufficient to stop after the first sentence, but the rest of the quote from 2003s Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl is relevant for the second- and third-order effects of accepting personal responsibility.

One can accept that they are but a wee part of a larger community, people, electorate, nation, and planet, or they cannot. We are not all Main Characters following a plot of adventure, immortality, and eternal fame.

Do our votes actually count? In local elections more than larger elections, sure.

Are our voices heard? In the din of a packed stadium or on the dial of public opinion sure – after all, if no one spoke, would there be a cacophony?

Do our actions matter? To those who rely on us to meet their hierarchy of needs (Maslow, again), absolutely.

Those are first-order effects of our choices to accept and influence our voluntary and involuntary roles we assume. What is most important, however, are the second- and even third-order effects of our personal responsibility: what we show to be considered important, and the establishment of a local norm/boundary.

We choose to look in the mirror and identify whether we are the victims of circumstance or the agents of change. What we subsequentially demonstrate we are going to do with that realization is what we show as a personal value to our family, friends, and cohorts. Attend religious services, enroll in secondary education or trade schools, enlist or commission in the Armed Services, deploy for far too long, to lands too far away, for a campaign entirely too convoluted to simplify, against an adversary too far removed from cultural parity and too far entrenched in centuries-old conflicts. Become a parent and/or personal mentor to pass on values, habits, and ethics… or not – personal choice/responsibility, after all. These would be the second-order effects.

Norms and boundaries are the final effect. After we look in the mirror to understand the role… after we establish our path… we maintain our own momentum as well as define what our left and right limits are… as well as the goal/return on investment of our actions. We decide in somewhat malleable terms how far we are willing to go and adapt our self-evaluation and actions accordingly. Along with that, we determine the price of what we are willing to do or tolerate: ordained in the upper reaches of a faith, letters or qualifications after our names, safe return and retirement, grandkids or a professional legacy which spans many lifetimes (“Do you know the writings of a Sun Tzu?”).

We choose roles we play – or allow ourselves to be played by our level of awareness of what we get in return, what we show is important, and how far we are willing to go in support of that self-identity within the larger entity.

We choose to inquire… to investigate… to initiate… to inspire.

Or we actively choose to remain ignorant… to be critical… to inhibit… to demoralize.

Whether any of that is within our direct control isn’t the main factor – what we accept and act upon is. Just like the adoption of my nom de plume – my reminder that I choose to be viciously optimistic… aggressively, violently, and savagely hopeful in who and what I can be… in who and what we can be.

I put that in the lap of The Reader because that is where it needs to be – that capacity to choose and act.

As far as “Fate, predestination, God’s Will”… well, that’s not up to me to describe, determine, or direct; that is – and always should be – up to the individual and when the time is right… when the Divine Spark is struck and sets one’s soul ablaze with meaning, purpose, and path.

My motivations with this blog are multifaceted, but my insistency is simple: I can only opine and observe… transcribe whatever thoughts I can when possible… and document my own thoughts, experience, and intent.

I hope that these words nudge attention to Information Warfare, history, and where I see us going if we choose poorly – if we choose to be led into the belief that we are better off coasting through life without questioning things or events; accepting everything at face value and reacting impulsively based upon the thin veneer of pre-packaged ideas – “apathy balanced with disdain.”

We have all these [angrily gestures to the phone and computer] tools at our disposal, yet we are becoming so saturated with information that we are regressing either through inattention, misdirection (or guided direction, which is more sinister), or overstimulation. We can do so much better…

…If only…

If only folks would look in the mirror and decide to do and be so much better.

Your choice.

V.O.

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