Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Choice

I had this idea of what my life would be. I would escape from my parents' home, go to college, get a tv series, and live happily ever after. Instead, I found out I was no actor, and no doubt for the best as I would have hated the life. I married the wrong person, moved across the country, and wound up studying science, in a war zone, with a good person, then further education and training, and a different sort of life than I could have imagined, but which suited me much better.

One never knows, really. Or at least, the people who seem to know probably just chanced on the right path early. Plan? There ain't no plan. I don't need no fucking plan. I don't got to show you no fucking plan.

The Trousers of Time have at least a couple of legs each, and who knows which leg one will wind up in? Or which one was initially intended? If, indeed, there was anyone to do the intending.

Each choice leads on to another series of options, and we do what we can with what we have. Bad decisions eliminate a lot of possibilities, as do safe ones. And we wind up more and more who we are, as our actions and the results, form us and mark us.

Here I am, now, for good or ill.

6 comments:

Rouchswalwe said...

I once met a man whose parents named him Iahn. When I asked him why the interesting spelling, he told me it stands for "I am here now."

gz said...

agreed

Relatively Retiring said...

Sometimes one is lucky enough to have a leg down each of the Trousers of Time. What about the Skirt of Time, which can be voluminous enough to hide a multitude of happenings?

Iahn is a great name!

Phil Plasma said...

I'd like to think that as I get older I am not so defined that there is no room left for change, but who knows how I will feel about such things once I get crotchety (more crotchety?).

Lucy said...

Yes, I'm always rather uncomfortable at the 'you can do/have/get it if you really want' line. Who says?

Perhaps there are people who have very clear gifts or drives which will determine the direction of their lives to an extent, but even then that's not the whole story. And the present that we are in is never the future we envisioned, even if it seems to conform to it in every particular, which it seldom does.

Yet when I look at myself and the people I've known a long time, it often doesn't surprise me that we are where we are and how. But I suppose that's hindsight, and a kind of acceptance. I think I can more clearly see what I can't do or couldn't have done than what I might.

Zhoen said...

RR,
And what if one ends up in the Socks of TIme?

Phil,
If you get caught in the Crotch of the Trousers of Time, you are in trouble.

Lucy,
Our characters drive our decisions, which color our lives and choices. I'm still the quiet child who thinks deeply and feels too much. My choices are in accordance with or reaction against these core impulses.