elecciónes

today (thanks to the cooke) i came across a blog about the problems with endless choice. it reminded me (at least thematically) of something i wrote back in '07 on the myspace. yes, back when i actually wrote things with frequency. back when i had "time." back when i was more jaded about my future and less jaded about the state of affairs on earth.

so first, the link to fake plastic fish's blog on choice. and for those of you annoyed or bemused by my recent attempt at plastic free-ness mr. fake fish is to blame...but i digress.

on to the meat (or tofu, if you will)

my '07 ramblings:

10 April 2007

its been a short while, and i have little to say, but much time to waste. however, one topic keeps coming up in my life: choice. now, in some ways this is obvious, being that i work for a pro-choice organization. in others, its less obvious.

last weekend, i attended the civil liberties and public policy conference at hampshire college. there were good parts (like playing 'i never' with coworkers in hotel rooms) and bad parts (transportation), but the most enlightening moment for me was when the synapses fired, long overdue, and i finally saw the intimate connection between reproductive justice and homebirth. so there you have it. we should be rallying just as much around choice in birth as choice in reproductive health.

then, this weekend, at easter dinner, i was sitting next to a 50 year old woman i had only briefly met once before. but as good diasporic midwesterners do, we talked about the homeland (hers being MN, mine being IL). she mentioned that her daughters (who grew up out east) don't understand what its like to not have choice. and to wait for things. in NY you can get whatever you want within the time it takes you to get from wall street to 42nd on the subway. probably shorter. for me, growing up, it required at 30 min car ride to bloomington. then the choices were cub foods or jewel. bergner's or jcpenney. chili's or tgi fridays. for late nights, denny's or steak n' shake. etc. etc. and being an indecisive person, this was in many ways a good thing.

last night, rhino mentioned something on a strangely similar note. we are a generation of choice. we have every product at our fingertips and this may affect us even more than the information that is so readily avaliable. perhaps the variety in choice makes us less cohesive as a generation, or perhaps it binds us together because we all crave option. whatever the case, i truly believe its a defining feature.

finally, i am left with a choice that's seeming all too important. and it has to be made by friday. really tomorrow. and i pretty much know what i want, but i'm scared to sign my name and send it off. perhaps its just poor former experiences that make me hesitate, but its time for me to start being decisive and go with it.

besides, wherever i choose, the ball will be rolling in the right direction.

this all reminds me of ol' tommy robbins, and still life with woodpecker. though its among my least favorites of his books (which as a set rank just above hoosier vonnegut jr.'s cannon), it centers around this word choice and its use on Camel cigarette descriptions. so, i'll leave you with a quote:

The word that allows yes, the word that makes no possible.

The word that puts the free in freedom and takes the obligation out of love.

The word that throws a window open after the final door is closed.

The word upon which all adventure, all exhilaration, all meaning, all honor depends.

The word that fires evolution's motor of mud.

The word that the cocoon whispers to the caterpillar.

The word that molecules recite before bonding.

The word that separates that which is dead from that which is living.

The word no mirror can turn around.

In the beginning was the word and that word was

ok, so first things first (another digression) that impending choice i had to make back on 15 april 2007 turned out just fine. even though the gill did make me question it momentarily a year later.

but the real point is that i think mr. fake fish is quite astute

...Having fewer choices of products to buy means that I can get on with what’s more important in my life. But then Scwartz goes on to say something I disagree with fundamentally, and it’s this: When there’s only one choice, you can tell yourself that the world is responsible for your decision because it didn’t give you any choice. When there are hundreds of choices, you feel that you are responsible because you could have made a better choice.

I disagree with that premise because I reject the notion that I have to choose from the menu I’m given in the first place. My choices are not chunky vs. smooth. My choice is neither. Or making my own. Or writing to the company and asking for what I want. Or starting a consumer action campaign. Or taking a walk. I think that feeling restricted to the menu companies offer us and the frustration of bumping up against the infrastructure when we try to live our values is what is depressing to many of us. That’s not freedom. It’s powerlessness.

i'm a bit inspired by all this. i think he really gets to the bottom of the freedom of choice. real choice is not A or B. real choice is having the courage to go outside the box. outside the alphabet and create the world you want. forgive my marxist metaphor (but i've been reading papa karl, lukács, and postone in the last week) but choice is not about what commodity you may achieve by selling your labor. choice is seeing the immediacy as the reification it represents. it is understanding the abstractions as such, conceptualizing "forces" as structured by human behavior, not "objective natural laws." its finding a way around the system.

and so, with that, i wish you all a happy, revolutionary, 4 july "with freedome and self-determination for all", because as an email invitation i just received states

"nobody is free until all are free"