Choices
Yesterday I wrote about how many options we have, so many thing we could do with our time. I'd like to elaborate, I have more to say. Because, you see, there is far far more choice of what to do than any one person could possibly ever even realize. Even me.
The way I see it, it breaks down the usual way: known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns. And unknown knowns, which are either things that someone knowns (sic, lol), that person is just not you, or it's things that you've forgotten that you know but will realize it again when the right situation arises. Maybe those two conditions are kind of the same thing, depending on other conditions.
Another thing that I think about this is that there are uncountably many choices between any other choice one could make. What I mean is that, sure, there is the reductive take which is that when faced with a fork in the road you've only got a few options: left, right, stay put, or turn around. That's already twice more choices than often listed in that cliche, and we're just getting started. We live in a time ordered universe, you could wait a bit and see who else happens along before abandoning that plan and venturing a bit down the left branch, change your mind a few steps down the lane before returning to the right one. As far as metaphor goes, it was a whole sequence of binary choices, or ternary, or quaternary, depending on how you look at it.
What am I getting at with that? That the obvious choices aren't the only ones, and even after that you can sequence them and I bet you'll see something else entirely. You are not on rails here, and as long as you elect to be your own agent, you'll have agency over the choices that you make. With that ability, who knows what you'll find or experience.
Ok, I think I've gotten a bit far from that other end of this axis, which is how to make a choice when there are so many interesting ones to pick from. Truth is, I don't really know, and I don't want to parrot something that I don't believe and haven't been able to put to great practice myself. What I can say is that you've got to decide it for yourself. Well, you don't. But you may not find it as satisfying. Not deciding for yourself will certainly be easier for a while. I feel safe in saying that eventually other people's choices for you will get pretty uncomfortable. Possibly torturous, even.
Another thing that I feel pretty safe in saying is that the advice "you'll just know" is probably kind of wrong. With out a lot of attention to your inner voice (or whatever you want to call it), it's only the really wrong choices that will be obvious. Something that is kind of right is probably going to be hard to distinguish from something that is more right. I don't know the difference until I've spent some time on that choice, inhabiting it, following it up, pursuing it. Even then, it's often not the choice (activity?) itself that makes it clear that this isn't the best fit. At least, I think that is what is going on there.
Another choice begins to appeal, distract, interfere. This is the point in this entry where my own logic reaches it's limits. Stay with the old choice, or change? You don't have to forget everything that you learned before, so it's not lost, not abandoned.
Choice's End?
I guess it depends on what the goal is. Productivity? Bah. Achievement? Achieve what. Achievement (impact), takes follow through, dedication. That's a worthy choice, I think. It may amount to a hill of beans. I bet people would come from miles around to see a hill of beans of a certain size. Glory, then.
Glory to who? Self? God, if there is such a one? Do you need to be trained to accept your own achievement? Ready to believe in your own success? I was never taught this acceptance, to know what that kind of satisfaction looks like. It's never enough. I suspect that some people have this worse than others. More glory and more, never enough. Do we just stop when we're tired enough?
[lightly edited for typos, missing or wrong words, and such]