The Illusion of Permanence and Intentional Living

Think of your own mental landscape and the players that live there. If you were to take the time to observe and assess, you'd be amazed at how many different personalities your singular sense of self is comprised of. We all have a multitude of different characters that live out their entire lives inside of our brains; and just like in "real life", some get along brilliantly and some simply can't see eye to eye. There's typically an on-going chorus of different "voices" in our minds - thoughts and images, emotional reverberations from any number of experiences (pre-memory to future), the pull toward widely different priorities of action and focus, and the echos of other people's words, facial expressions and emotional projections.

Most hold tightly to their concept of self, and it's common to assume that we are consistent, stable, enduring entities. But in truth, each one of us is an ever changing process of the expression of possibility. There's nothing in our genetic make up that requires us to think, feel, act or interpret events in any particular way. It doesn't fit nicely into our rationalized world view, but the truth is, we're more verbs than nouns, more humans being than human beings.

This notion feels very threatening to most, is taken as pure gobbledygook by many, and is generally dismissed or ignored rather than considered. But, in fact, it's quite liberating to be freed from the bonds of our preconceptions and preprogramming. Rather than feeling confined within determined parameters and threatened by suggestions to the contrary, one feels an inherently expansive nature and sees her/himself as actively evolving into an ever improving force working for a greater good. Additionally, it brings heightened participation in life, as functioning on auto pilot, from within a protective fox hole, requires little conscious or active involvement.

As a simplistic example, one may have developed a habit in early childhood to put on the right sock and then the left, the right shoe, then the left. And this is the way it happens, every time, for life. It's just a habit. Our perceived selves are nothing more than collages of habitual actions. Thoughts, priorities, attitudes, etc. are just inner actions, which have also become predominately habituated.
We learn that repeated patterns in the world denote fixed constants. The sun goes down, it comes back up. I drop the ball, it bounces off the ground. We then apply the same train of logic to ourselves. "I've seen myself acting/thinking/feeling like this, time and again, so that's obviously how I am." Not so.

It would be silly to proclaim, "I'm just intrinsically a right sock first kind of guy". But it may seem perfectly natural to say things like, "He makes me crazy", "I always worry too much" or "I just can't resist chocolate". At most, recurring actions (external or internal) are just habits that we've grown accustomed to. You are not bound to being anyone or anything, either by your past actions, or by your preconceptions of yourself.

But most don't acknowledge this, so our way of living becomes like sleep walking, or like driving a vehicle, while watching a DVD on the overhead monitor. Lost in thought and emotion, fantasy and recollection, our bodies and words and energies are largely left to steer themselves, following well worn ruts. Exercising free will requires deciding which shoe to put on first, choosing how to react, consciously selecting the appropriate emotions to convey, deliberately picking life paths, intelligently selecting foods, etc.

One can't merely wish it to be different, but discarding habits isn't nearly as hard as it's made out to be - unless one chooses to cling, doggedly, to the existing notion of self, which contains the habits in question. Here, a little humility goes a long way. Nobody's all knowing, and some of what we think we know is dead wrong. Everyone's in this same boat. And thinking/feeling/living within this reality is both freeing and illuminating.

We all have the capacity to develop our free will, if we so choose. It's OK, go ahead and watch the DVD while the car drives itself, if that's what you think makes you happy. Just don't be surprised when you veer off course and meet that tree.

Then again, look at where the worlds come to, as a result of all the trees downed by generations of dozing drivers.

Well, it is just a planet and they're only living beings, and this fantasy flick has me so captivated ... or not.