The Limits of Choice

 Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions

- Simone Weil

It has been difficult to gather enough motivation to write another entry. I am wondering why. Looking back over previous posts I see a single-point focus on breaking free from the influence of others... but now that intention is gone. In its place are a variety of interests, a variety of paths, a variety of truths and new perspectives. But which of these should I communicate via this blog? Hesitation. The single-point focus is now without a point. Surely the last two years at Harvard have revealed many things to me... but were these things important? I find it hard to say. Even if they were, I now feel that we each must follow our own path in life. Our own path of learning, of experiencing, and of doing neither. We are free to look deeper, but only when we are ready to do so. Attempting to influence another may be misguided and, in the end, futile. Perhaps in breaking free from the influence of others, one also breaks free from the urgency to influence others. Perhaps I had been trying to influence and guide others all along... without really knowing the way.

*****

I will be attending the annual three-month meditation retreat at the IMS in Massachusetts. We humans have this intriguing and perfectly natural propensity to attach to particular lifestyles, particular worldviews, particular ideologies... or, put more broadly, particular ways of understanding reality. By attaching, we inadvertently imprison ourselves to that particular way of understanding... limiting our perspective to a mere slice of the whole. Religion is a useful metaphor here. By psychologically attaching to (i.e., believing in) Catholicism, for example, we limit our openness and, hence, understanding of other religions. In doing so, we deprive ourselves of the bigger picture, of that kernel of truth that lies waiting. This applies not only to religious traditions, but to practically any conscious or unconscious value, idea, principle, belief, opinion, comparison, judgment, understanding, etc. If truth is our goal, then our natural propensity to attach is the barrier. If in a hallway with twenty doors you walk through one, the others disappear from view. If enough time passes, those old doors disappear from memory too. Meditation is one of several curious life experiences that can pull you back into that hallway. Death, drugs, and great loss are others.

And now, standing once again in the hallway of doors, how do you choose? You do not.