Framing
Yesterday I touched on the difficulty of knowing what the right choice for you or me is. I have more to say, but about a different facet of the difficulty here.
It has been said that "advice is a dangerous gift", so let me be clear that this is not an advice column. I am exploring my own challenges, seeking to see what I think in what I have written. You may join me, or not. I will say no more about that.
There is a problem of imagination, or what choice is present and possible for some is completely invisible to others and they are undistracted. A particular illness of the creative, or educated, or people with a certain amount of experience, is to see so many options that none seems better or worse, or at least they all (or just many) offer some value or interest. It's a different thing than 'analysis paralysis', the present options arise unbidden and need no particular analysis to make one paralyzed. They are obviously interesting. There is also, comically, the opposite problem: too many bad options, none of which appeal or seem to have any redeeming qualities. I guess that's a kind of irony.
In my mind's eye I see this, vividly, as a dirt path at a saddle point (col): forward into the valley are many good ways to go, behind the other valley beckons with so many treacherous choices. Vaguely to the hard left or right are paths that lead up into the higher mountains and maybe clouds.
I think with this thicket of choices that one of the dangers is less about finding satisfaction and more about settling in tolerance. One choice or another might not seem all that satisfying, but either is tolerable and maybe not without merits. Inwardly I wonder which would be useful. Outwardly, the signs are that I am satisfied with my choice. The two worlds are well hidden from each other and can only communicate through the little window facing between them. It is up to the only person that has any access to them both to notice the discrepancy and speak up about it.
This is where it gets tricky. A third party has entered the scene: you've got to tell someone about what you've decided. What do we have? We have: the outside situation which is a mix of choices with one selected, there is the inside response to that scene, and I suppose an internal observer trying to make sense of those two things. If I remember my college psychology right, that's the id, or maybe ego? I'll have to look it up. Depending on how you count that observer, which I think is tangled up with the inside response, there are 3 or 4 puzzle pieces now, all of them dynamic to some degree or other.
We're coming to the end of this entry now, but there is a little more I can add. There are a couple of ways that I see this can be framed. One frame is a free choice, your internal observer has made the best guess of both internal and outward results, and you pick the option that seems best given what you know. It won't always turn out as desired, for a variety of reasons, dominant ones being error, missing information, and chance. If you are paying attention you can learn something useful from all of those. Another frame is an optimization problem that tries to satisfy all the people involved, and any other constraints that you deem relevant. There are times when this is the right model, but if too often chosen you'll probably lose your way. The optimization problem sounds quite similar to the free choice frame, but I see it as a significant and meaningful matter of degrees different, even if they are on the same continuum.
No resolution here yet, but progress is progress.