Listening to the news is not what I would normally recommend as a good choice. Certainly it is informative; and, it is an important additive to other social communications. But to dignify the shadowing as a handpicked decision with the imperative and paramountcy implied by the word choice I would not call a life-changing pursuit. Yet the recent insight on CNN into the senate examination of a presidential nominee to the Supreme Court of the United States has by coincidence critically drawn my attention to this fundamental hallmark of life – choice.
The decision of what to do or what not to do is for some people I suspect easier or more difficult than for others. Children with compulsive parents for example might find themselves “motivated” unintentionally. By contrast orphaned children may feel far less adult influence upon their future. The independent child – either because of his or her intellectual capacity or because of his or her bloodymindedness – likely relies solely upon his or her own decisions about what path to take.
I mention children at the outset because although it is possible late in life to make significant alteration of one’s course the predominance of bearing operates at the younger stage of life. Education is often determinative of what one does; and that takes time. The curious feature about those who embrace the long-term projects is that it is frequently at the peril of other strictly personal developments – like family, entertainment, friends, travel and general broadening of discovery. For those who make the “right” choice, the distinction is most often heralded by profession or business success. And like the news, there is much in the affirmative to be said about professionalism and business success. Indeed the latest senate hearings (unlike those devoted to Kavanaugh’s drunken lascivious upbringing) highlight in strong relief the product of having made the right choice.
Yet unwittingly the luminous feature of choice has made me question the objective. Recognizing the inestimable value of the choice made by many of those who participated in the recent senate hearings I am nonetheless questioning the characterization of the right choice. Based upon my personal upbringing, including ulterior influences, the distinctive features of my decisions were not by many standards ideal. In my defence it is not uncommon to encounter friends and acquaintances who regularly echo a similar nature nor is it fictional. Indeed the truth may lead one to question which of the alternatives is fictional or real.
The human being is by some account a vulgar commodity by which I mean sometimes earthy and lewd. We all adore babies and puppies but the organic element of both is subject to frank necessity. Some people choose to escape the rude element of life as distasteful and scurrilous. Yet I hardly think one is a Philistine if one succumbs to the brassy or unrefined opportunities of daily living. To be clear my hidden agenda is not to sanctify loutish behaviour but rather to acknowledge the occasional insinuation of steamy or indecorous characteristics of ordinary people.
The five senses (sight sound smell taste touch) with which we are privileged to be born are not only elemental but also undeniable. Identifying the limits of scope, the extent of appropriation, the confines of recognition, the extent of experience and the limitation of duration are all subject to purely organic qualification. Considering that those vehicles of perception, of understanding, of discovery, of peculiarity and of manifestation are all products of our human nature it is worthwhile preserving an organic interpretation of life’s essentials. In the result I object to the definition of the right choice driven by pure logic or mechanics. We are neither purely cerebral nor objective. Just as we condone the functional achivement we must allow for the artistic realm. The spread between the two enables a huge variety of choice. As so often occurs in life the ultimate choice is polarized by seemingly competitive decisions. Somewhere in the middle no doubt subsists the right choice to keep body and soul together.