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At lunch, Micah talked about a recent piece he wrote for publication. He emailed it over after we got back to the office, so I thought I'd post it here: "The Nature of Choice To begin, this topic is inspired by The Matrix Reloaded. I’ll keep the movie associations to a minimum, as the discussion hardly requires them. I just wanted to make known what started the chain of thought in me. The aforementioned film deals with a number of questions regarding destiny, choice, purpose, causality, and etc., which have been touched on by various discussions and forums on the Internet. What I have not seen dealt with is the interweaving of these ideas. More specifically, I see all the others such as causality and destiny as supporting players of choice, at least for the human perception of choice. When a person begins to examine and become aware of his own thought patterns, that person takes note of his choices. Choice, it seems, is the ultimate expression of Imagination and Will, the creative forces. With each choice a new existence is carved out and the future made new. This line of thinking leads the Seeker to train his thought patterns to more closely coincide with his will, making choices that manifest those thoughts, bringing about a balance that leads to a more productive, healthy psyche that is then capable of further levels of awareness, training, and mastery. Beautiful, isn’t it? Here’s where we begin “tumbling down the rabbit hole.” Every choice we make is the result of a series of variables run through the thought methodology we have created throughout our lifetime. Sure, life experiences changes this, value systems change, age alters perception, etc. But each of these is a result of variable stimuli. So, given that someone could become aware of all involved stimuli over the course of a life and understand the basis of a person’s judgment process, it stands to reason that all choices are predictable, through a complex logical process. The sheer number of variables involved and the complexity of the process make it difficult to wrap your head around the concept, but nevertheless, it would seem that there is no true chaos or randomness. Every atom that moves or interacts with another, all energy that is exchanged, does so based on preexisting criteria. Destiny creates itself through choice. As physics has so graciously taught us, the universe is a complex mathematical system. Life is no different. It is part of the system and therefore predictable. I suppose from this standpoint the Merivingian from Reloaded was correct about causality, “We are slaves to it.” Cause and effect have been working their way through the laws of physics since the beginning of time. Welcome to a Matrix that needs no computers or evil machine lords to exist. It is not a prison for the mind, but the very basis of it. Destiny is not the antithesis of free will but both the parent and child of it. Ultimately all this rambling and analysis is irrelevant. In order to live, we have to focus our attention in a linear direction. Always moving forward. However, it is perhaps useful to study the system for predictability, providing practical power for success in life endeavors." For what was a rather slow morning, this afternoon is shaping up to be full on. I'm busier than a three legged cat covering shit... busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest... busier than a cat trying to bury a turd on a frozen pond... busier than a handicapped space at the Special Olympics... a one-eyed man in a topless bar... busier than a Beirut bricklayer... busier than a one armed wallpaper hanger with the crabs... busier than a cranberry merchant in November... busier than a centipede at a toe countin' contest... busier than a feminist at a Southern Baptist prayer meeting... busier than a two-peckered goat... busier than a banana salesman at a monkey convention... busier than a stump tailed cow at fly time... busier than a blind hound dog in smokehouse... busier than a 3-year-old on a sugar high... busier than a Jenny Craig cop in a donut shop... busier than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs... ummm... yeah. Google rocks. Back to the grind.