I have often said "it's a free will universe" as a basis for extolling choice as a power, whether conscious or unconscious, for determining your experience. To "choice" I always connect the concept of responsibility. Responsibility always follows immediately upon choice. Those who tremble before this power of choice may even habitually refuse to make choices, unwilling to take on the responsibility that choice of necessity implies. This is a choice in itself, a pattern of omission and passivity with it's own distinct effects and power to manipulate. All this having been said, what if in fact it's not "a free will universe" after all? The concept of "predestination" also has a long history in philosophical and religious thought and stands as a counterpoint to "free will" with it's own ardent supporters. When I look at an average day, things happen and I respond. Needs arise and I must act. My breath and heartbeat and peristalsis are events occurring to me, gifts freely given from what great source I cannot truly fathom. I won't pretend to resolve here a millennia-long question. And in the face of it, perhaps, at the very least, we might choose with lighter hearts, and enjoy the uncertainty knowing that our every action is effected upon waves of permission from powers greater than our own.
--Gil Hedley, Integral Anatomy

 It is man's pretense that because he has choice, he is free.
--Krishnamurti

You can always count on the Americans
to do the right thing -
after they've tried
everything else.
--Winston Churchill, first person to be made honorary US citizen

"Living a conscious life is extreme sport enough."
--Liz Sutherland, 2008

...is worth overdoing. That was their mantra.

Completely Recommend.
( is worth overdoing.Collapse )

Most humans exist somewhere on that line between enslavement to destructive habits at one end and total consciousness and nonattachment at the other. In exactly the same way, freedom of choice can be represented as a continuum. Realistically, very few people could ever be found operating at the positive extreme, truly conscious and consistently free.
--Gabor Mate, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, p305.

People demand freedom of speech
as a compensation for
the freedom of thought
which they seldom use.
-Kirkegaard

To be able to see into other people's worlds.
To not be able to not see into other people's worlds.
Is this a gift or a curse?
( my answerCollapse )

People take different roads
seeking fulfillment and happiness.
Just because they're not on your road,
doesn't mean they've gotten lost.
--Dalai Llama

I could (yet can't) break out of this prison for drunks
I did not come here of my own accord, and i cannot leave that way
Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.
--Rumi