The Choice of Freedom

How much freedom do we have in making a choice? Your genes are preselected. You have certain predispositions. Your genes, again, along with your childhood, moulded your brain and, henceforth, your thinking and emotional dexterity. Your entire upbringing and education, inside and outside school, guided the formation of your mentality, frameworks and beliefs till they became for granted and seemingly obvious (to you). You are not alone in determining your circumstances — other people are very often involved. Even your food, or lack thereof, can unexpectedly play a role in your mood, thinking and decision making. Lack of sleep or even excess sleep can also affect your mind. The environment, including the weather, have powerful effects on your psyche — some invisible and some obvious. The cycle of day and night, in cahoots with your circadian rhythm (body clock), influences your thinking so much that you can rarely realize it except in hindsight — how many times have you made a resolution at night that gets thrown out the window in the morning? You may think you have control now but slowly rewind through time and you’ll see your control diminishing till it becomes non-existent during your few months before and after birth. What makes you think that the growth of your freedom of choice has not been an illusion? With all of our thinking fallacies we possess and the sensory illusions we are prone to, how can you still be unquestioning? Some seasoned meditators even proclaim that the ultimate culimination of them practicing meditation is realising more and more that there is no ‘self’!

I began writing the above long paragraph so I could dispel it in the next but I ran out of time. Well, perhaps some other day when I’m “free”.