choice
WHAT ON EARTH
‘What on earth are you doing here?’
came the voice.‘I don’t know. I just don’t know‘
came his answer.‘What on earth are you doing here?
On earth?’came the voice again.Followed by the terrifying
silence of uncertainty.– Nic Askew
could it be that our assumed adolescence through mid life are perhaps direct results of a publicly prescribed compulsory curriculum…in spaces not of our choosing (or at least not normally a unanimous choice of the people occupying that space at that time)
dave cormier (@davecormier) tweeted at 5:04 AM – 14 Nov 2016 :
Seems the Greek root of heretic (heretikos) means ‘to be able to choose’. The fight against heresy is the fight against choice. That fits. (http://twitter.com/davecormier/status/798134469785894912?s=17)
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on freedom of choice.. from Gabor Maté‘s realm of hungry ghosts:
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steve: freedom comes w a dollar sign attached..
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in the internal world of the psyche.. freedom means something very different. it is the ability to opt for our long term physical and spiritual well being as opposed to our immediate urges.. absent that ability, an y talk of free will or choice becomes nearly meaningless..
thus the dilemma of freedom in addiction may be phrased this way: a person driven largely by unconscious forces and automatic brain mechanism is only poorly label to exercise any meaningful freedom of choice..
that includes.. ie: kids in school.. adults in school/work.. et al
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ocd sufferers are diff from other people only in degree.. much of what we do arises from automatic programming that bypasses conscious awareness and may even run contrary to our intentions..
this is science of people ness.. not us
not choice
not voice
dr schwartz: the passive side of mental life, which is generated solely and completely by brain mechs, dominates the tone and tenor of our day-to-day, even our second-to-second experience. during the quotidian business of daily life the brain does indeed operate very much as a machine does..
decision that we may believe to be freely made can arise from unconscious emotional drives or subliminal beliefs.. they can be dictated by brain mechs programmed early in childhood and determined by events of which we have not recollection..
no matter how intelligent and well meaning the individual, the malfunctioning brain circuitry may override rational judgment and intention. almost any human being, when overwhelmed by stress or powerful emotions, will act or react not from intention but from mechanisms that are set off deep in the brain, rather than being generated in the conscious and volitional segments of the cortex. when acting from a driven or triggered stated, we are not free..
this is huge.. this is why we’re not getting there (to equity).. because we keep saying people are choosing whatever.. when most people are not.. we’re automated..
let go
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shwartz: it’s a subtle thing, freedom. it takes effort; it takes attention and focus to not act something like an automaton. although we do have freedom, we exercise it only when we strive for awareness, when we are conscious not just of the content of the mind but also of the mind itself as a process..
when not governed by conscious awareness, our mind tends to run on automatic pilot. it is scarcely more ‘free’ than a computer that performs preprogrammed tasks in response to a button being pushed.
eckhart tolle: choice implies consciousness – a high degree of consciousness. without it, you have no choice’
we may say then that in the world of the psyche, freedom is a relative concept: the power to choose exists only when our automatic mental mechs are subject to those brain system that are able to maintain conscious awareness...
anyone whose automatic brain mechs habitually run in overdrive has diminished capacity for free decision making.. esp if the parts of the brain that facilitate conscious choice are impaired or underdeveloped..
or manufactured to consent.. or volunteered for compliance.. ie: been in school 12 + or – years..
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realistically.. very few people could ever be found operating at the positive extreme, truly conscious and consistently free..
most of us.. not us
in realm of emotional freedom and conscious decision making a penniless hermit may enjoy much more latitude than a status addicted millionaire who , still compensating for unconscious childhood hurts, is driven by an insatiable need to be feared or admired.. the hard core drug addict finds the worst of both worlds: low on the totem pole of psych freedom , she is also at the base of the socioecon ladder.. the rest of us perch more or less precariously, at whatever altitude, somewhere above her..
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