"I could have just stopped, and changed majors. Some people were programming in their free time.
I just wasn't into it like that....but....sometimes you have to choose to stop or just to push through, and so I just pushed through and graduated."
My friend said all this to me with a slight tinge of remorse in his voice, perhaps for what could have been had he chosen something else. He had been going to university majoring in IT, and lost interest at the end of his studies there. I wanted to tell him: YOU ALWAYS HAVE A CHOICE. If you don't want to "push through" you can quit and find something that your passion pulls you through. Or rather, something that you are.
My friend is very religious, so he tends to try to view things through this box of "what God wants me to do." I so desperately wanted to tell him that "what God wants him to do" is what he wants to do. Anyway, there was no point in pressing the matter.
Exercising our human right to colorful choice.
Why is choice so important? And not only choice, but the natural effects, or consequences of our choices as human beings. Why are these important? Well, let's look at a slice of life without them:
Imagine going to a restaurant you like--maybe your favorite in town--and opening the menu to see that, lo and behold, there is only one choice! You can only order a tuna sandwich and a coffee. You call the server over to your table and ask about the meaning of this absurdity and the server replies "But sir, surely you want to do what the restaurant thinks is best!"
Do you see how silly this is? Why is it less silly when government does the exact same thing?
Take this story from the news, for example, of an Australian father being jailed for choosing to treat his daughter's terminal neuroblastoma with cannabis oil. The treatment appeared to be working--until the hospital phoned the police and the police kidnapped a grown man and put him into a cage. Stealing a little dying girl's father and terminating a treatment that was showing very promising signs of success is hardly helping, is it? This little girl is now gone and dead, but the monster known as the state, that refused her the medicine she so badly needed, thrashes on blindly devouring anyone who would dare to make their own choice.
Can you choose what you can or cannot put into your body? No. The government does that.
Can you choose which goods and services, if any, you want to pay for with your hard-earned money? Nope. The government chooses that for you via taxes taken by threat of violence.
Can you choose how you will defend yourself in a life-threatening situation? Sorry. Better use only government police and government approved weapons.
Can you choose how you will raise your children? Sure. As long as the government approves of what they eat, where they go to school, which needles and chemicals get jabbed into their bodies, and which thoughts they think, or don't think.
Can you choose which police or defense organization you subscribe to? No. The government chooses. There is only one, and when they make mistakes, or even intentionally kill someone, they will investigate themselves. I know a third-party investigation makes a lot more sense, but that isn't one of the choices.
Can you choose what you will eat or drink? Sure as long as it is not raw milk and as long as it is all government approved.
Can you choose where you will live? Where you will go? Sure. As long as you pass the test and pay for the appropriate government-issued permission form, slip, booklet, permit, or card.
Can you collect rain water? You know, water that falls naturally from the sky? Maybe. Better ask the "government."
Do you see what I am getting at here? The government has set things up in such a way that the situation we live in today is essentially no different than the restaurant scenario I described above.
Without choice, what do we have?
Do you know what's funny? My son often cries and whines when I try to force him to do something. He will kick and fight and scream. Even if I use a saccharine sweet tone and try to cajole him, he knows the score. To deny a human being the freedom of choice is to deny them their humanity. When I offer my son an array of 2 or 3 reasonable choices, he lights up, takes his human dignity back, and enters back into the engagement.
Consequence.
In the English language this word has taken on a somewhat negative connotation, but to be honest, I don't see it that way. Consequence. Con. Sequence. Literally "with sequence." A consequence is a manifestation of the sequence of events put into play by a choice. There are "good" ones and also "bad," or negative ones. If I try to kidnap a grizzly bear cub right in front of its mama, there is a good chance that the sequence of events will end with me not making it back home to tell the story. If I choose to carefully prepare my materials before a presentation, the consequence may be that my presentation goes better than it would have had I not planned so thoroughly.
Beware of anyone who habitually avoids and runs away from consequence. They are either slaves or slaveholders. They are going to get you in trouble at some point. In order to esteem ourselves and like ourselves as individuals we must accept responsibility for the consequences of our actions. Anyone who rejects the notion that our choices effect change in the real world can never really feel that full and content feeling of "I did it." Or conversely, that firm but remorseful conviction of "I made a mistake. Now I must fix it if I can."
We may try to lie to ourselves, but there is a voice inside us that will not be lied to. None of this is to say that some kind of moralizing or religious humiliation or shame is ever helpful. No, I am just talking about things which are the same as rivers flowing, trees bending in the wind, and the seasons changing. Choice and discrimination are natural and intrinsic parts of life, and necessary to and for the survival of any human being. Not to mention necessary to feelings of satisfaction, compassion, love, hope, cheerfulness, honesty, courage and well-being.
If you had never had any choices, who would you be?
To artificially limit the choices of other human beings, and to subject them to unnatural consequence, and to coercively shield still others from natural ones, is a crime against humanity. It is, in essence, claiming ownership of another human being.
Slavery, ostensibly, has been "abolished," but if you look around you will see that it is actually alive and well. Today I would like to encourage you to rebel. I would like to encourage you to be alive, and to be 100%, no-holds-barred, fully human and do the most unthinkably radical thing any sentient being can, or could ever do....
CHOOSE.
Graham Smith is Voluntaryist activist residing in Niigata City, Japan. Check out more of his work here:
https://facebook.com/VoluntaryJapan
https://twitter.com/VoluntaryJapan
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCN1H4Vhv8fqY8uiKcnqYkKQ
PEACE, LOVE, and ANARCHY