Choices

17 Dec 2003

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Both Monty Cantsin and WHGIII have commented upon current personal
conditions being the result of one's past choices (leading up to
it).

While I agree from a mere causal viewpoint, on a personal level I
would like to point out a few things nevertheless:

We can take as given, that everybody's life is a stream of decisions
or choices. We make 'em to the best of our ability as we go along in
life.

However, having a choice in matters does not imply the guarantee of
making the _right_ choices. In fact, even society acknowledges that
fact by making certain choices available only after a certain point
in life, such as voting, marriage, driving, drinking etc.etc on the
ground, that making such decisions requires a certain level of
insight and maturity.

But there's _still_ no guarantee for making right choices even
after the "magical" age of 18 (or 21). The only thing one can do is
to gather enough information in order to make the best choice based
on available information and conditions _known_ to you _at that
time_.

And here's also the catch. By making a certain choice, one does
usually _not_ choose the consequences of his/her actions
consciously! In fact, the possible consequences may not even be
foreseeable, predictable or expected in any way!

One does not drive a car with the previous conscious knowledge of
crashing it and living in a wheelchair ever after.

One does not climb Mt. Everest with the expectation of perishing in
a snow-storm.

One does not start using PGP based on the prediction, that your
key will be GAK'ed at some point.

Let's take the example of Janice one more time (violins for
Monty:)) : certainly her decision to get married and have 4 kids
was her personal and free choice at that time.
But it was not foreseeable nor expectable for her, that her husband
would take off after a while for another chick, leaving her with
the kids and a bunch of bills to pay!
Thus she married him and later did what every wife would do:
supporting him while he went to school instead of keeping the money
for herself as a backup-cushion in case he leaves.

Is that really so out of the ordinary a choice??

But even if one is able to make fairly good decisions overall in
life: you may not have previous conditions necessary to make certain
choices.

If you're born into a poor family, who just can't afford to send you
to College, how much of a choice to study will you have in that
event? More likely is, that you'll have to work and aid in the
support of the family instead of going to College.

But are you to be held responsible for the conditions that you are
born into or grow up under?

Clearly not. As you go along in life, one's personal ability to
influence your surroundings, conditions and overall life increase
(with right effort). But to expect everybody to be able to make
certain choices in a certain (right) way, or even expecting those
choices being available, is not based on the realities of life but
a mere projection from _your_ reality onto "theirs".

So is the statement of "screw 'em all" (if they weren't able to make
certain choices for reasons we don't know about). Not only does it
lack basic notions of humanity, such as caring for other people, but
also devalues the human ability to learn and change.

Just because you were young and careless (out of lack of
understanding at that time) or you were born in a slum in Rio de
Janeiro (or NYC) shouldn't mean, that you should still get
"screwed" for it when you're fifty or you now deserve the
dis-respect of society and no chances anymore. You may have never
had them...

While technically it is probably correct to say, that current
conditions are caused by previous actions (different people have
different expressions for that: karma, choices, fate etc.), there's
no justification for suffering and certainly none for watching it
passively and saying "they deserve it", IMHO.

But then this is also a valid choice one can freely make. You just
have to live with the consequences of it :)

Ciao

Harka

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... "Of course I care about other people...I watch CNN!"

If encryption is outlawed, only outlaws will have encryption...

Choices

harka＠nycmetro.com