Choosing

Thursday, October 25, 2018

3:30 a.m. Guys, we’d appreciate your take on Kristiina’s question. I have just re-read the past couple of conversations, as I’m not positive I understand what she is really asking.

[Kristiina (in reply to “Addressing the problems specific to you”): “Could you describe this a bit more? What I perceive in me is a hermit-strand that says goin’ swimmin’ in the soup is futile and useless and troublesome, better to sit at home & observe and all will pass anyways. This strand wants to pull back the strands that want to be more expressive in the world. So it looks to me 2 strands pulling in different directions lead to both being frustrated when neither is getting what they would choose. So how would you describe a trait of not-choosing?]

[TGU:] Yes, you mean the question as expressed seems to you to be not quite the question the description seemed to be framing. Perhaps not. Let us say a few things at a bit more general a level.

More theoretical?

Not more theoretical – for it is practical enough – but more general than the question’s specific intent. In this way, we will hope to encompass many nuances of the question.

Again, think of yourselves as communities and ask what you would do in an external equivalent of the situation you find yourselves in.

What we would do if it were other people disagreeing, rather than other parts of ourselves.

Yes. And that is closer to the actual situation than you know. If you were truly unified, it would not be.

Suppose you had one member of your family – your external, 3D-body family, we mean – determined to stay out of conflict because convinced that involvement is useless and perhaps harmful. Another relative is equally certain that involvement is necessary and desirable, for whatever reason. Practicality, perhaps, or a sense of duty toward what’s right, or even perhaps a mercenary sense of the potential benefits to be derived. How would you keep peace in such an external situation?

Maybe it couldn’t be done.

That’s quite possible. But how would you try?

The answer is going to vary considerably, depending upon whom we’re talking about.

Certainly it will. What does this tell you?

I guess, that any one strategy may or may not fit any one situation, but certainly will not fit every situation.

Of course. Which ought to tell you that not every outcome is equally desirable (from a given viewpoint), but nevertheless it will be more appropriate to one situation than to another.

And so –?

Well, you see, the reason you were somewhat tripping over Kristiina’s question is that it seemed to you to assume a certain outcome – not-choosing – as the correct and appropriate one. That is not necessarily what she meant, however.

I did understand it that way, I guess.

You might look at it as her asking how a person might choose among incompatible desires in such way as not to disregard any.

Is that a fair translation of what she asked?

Doesn’t matter. It is a valid question posed or not posed by another.

Okay.

The answer is that the desired result is itself the choice of the individual in question.

I think you mean, we choose what we want to have happen, and we have the right to make that choice. Even the duty, perhaps.

That’s the sense of it, yes. You are not required (who could do the requiring?) to choose neutrality or partiality in one direction or another. It is your choice, as choosing is your duty, and privilege, and entertainment, and occupation, during life. You choose who and what you want to be: Must that not include what you prefer among alternatives?

Now, if your considered judgment is that you should try for neutrality among strong competing strands within you, presumably that choice is rooted in reasons. (If it isn’t, if it is so instinctive in you as to be unavoidable, the only choice involved is between acquiescence or resistance to so strong an urge, so one-sided a preference. This in itself is choice, though, and ultimately will have its effect, if persisted in.) Those reasons are rooted in your psychological makeup. Do you wish to reinforce the existing makeup, or do you wish to alter it in one direction or other? Choice, always.

Try to keep our eye on the ball, in other words.

To the extent possible, yes. Your goal is to live, choosing. Do you have a model of yourself in mind? Do you have an ideal to strive for, in other words? The clearer your ideal, the clearer any given choice will be. However, what when you have not an ideal, but more than one, equally attractive but perhaps not entirely compatible, or consistent, or congruent? In such case, you could find yourself having to slight one good in order to pursue or support another good – and they may not be commensurable.

Well, say that’s so. What?

Why, you see, that’s one of those cases where there is no absolute, only preference. If your choice is not between good and evil, or right and wrong, or correct and error, but is between this good and that one – the only deciding factor can be one’s preference. That preference may come about as the product of many reasons, high, low, and indifferent, but it will be a preference, not a clearly indicated moral duty or correct (as opposed to erroneous) path.

Sometimes you cannot reason your way through a situation, but must choose according to more general values you hold.

Like the description of politics as sometimes a choice between two blunders.

And perhaps fortunate if the choice is between only two blunders, and not more! Similarly, your lives as they appear to you from one time-slice to the next. But from a more comprehensive perspective, it isn’t nearly so much chaos and lack of direction, but is pattern and choice. Only, you have to trust the process, because it isn’t going to be obvious, necessarily.

On a related note, that until just now I thought was unrelated, yesterday I went onto Amazon to see if Dark Fire had received any reviews, and that led me to check a couple of my other titles. I was interested to see that I tend to get either five-star reviews or one-star, many fewer between the two. I take it to mean, either the reviewer gets what I was doing or doesn’t; either it helps or it doesn’t; therefore, they conclude that I do or don’t know what I am doing. I’d feel worse about the one-star reviews, if they weren’t criticizing the quality of Rita’s and your responses. That tells me, the material doesn’t resonate for them, so there’s no point in expecting them to get anything out of it.

And so your question is –?

I don’t know, how about it you just comment?

The similarity you just noticed – and promptly lost below the threshold of consciousness – is that opinions differ, both internally and externally. You cannot expect unanimity, ever, and you cannot expect people to hold their strong opinions without thinking them the obvious conclusions to be drawn from the facts.

So, rather than unanimity, we have choice among discord. Yes. I see it.

We are always available for clarification of anything left hanging.

Okay, thanks. I guess we’ll see. Till next time.