And This Is Where You Make A Choice

So... Let's see where this all started...

Anyone who knows me, knows I do Yoga; knows I Love Yoga. Just Hatha stuff. Master the physical before you master the spiritual. So, you're supposed to wait three hours after eating before you do it. Usually that's not a problem, but I ate dinner early, and was super tired and took a little nap, so, I missed all the "waking" hours of the day to do it.

So, I'm sitting downstairs on the computer, and I look at the time (around 10:30 PM) and I say "Ya know what? I should just do my Yoga now. Fuck convention. I'll be up anyways!"

So I march up to my room, all proud and strong, ready to get into it. The first pose is real loud. It's a breathing pose. It has the ability to wake people up in the next room, i.e., my mom, who's a light sleeper to begin with.

I stand in front of my door, and I stop. I say to myself "And This Is Where You Make A Choice." And it wasn't much of a choice, and I don't think I fully understood what my motivations were for not doing my Yoga. Probably laziness, but post-hoc, I like to say I'm considerate of other people's sleeping habits.

But what I really want to get at, is how long it's been since I've acknowledged that I could make a choice. Before university, I "made choices" left right and centre. I would choose for the sake of choosing, manipulating my behaviour and environment just to get a change. And most importantly, I believed it was my choice to make. I believed I was in control of something; of myself.

Then university hit. Stuck in a neuroscience lab with nothing but logic and neurons. Behaviour is just an expression of the brain. Choice is just an illusion your brain creates to make that feeling of "self" and "consciousness" feel important. And the quotation marks set in... Ugh... Three years essentially of being drilled with the idea that I'm just a biological machine. Oh, but it's a beautiful thing. Something so intricate, so complex, yet, so basic. I'm a miracle out of control! Fuck that. It's not beautiful. It sucks. It tears away all the meaning, all the Life, all the humanity. I don't care if it is just an illusion, I want to believe again. I want to believe in the self, in consciousness, in soul, in choice.

And this is where cognitive dissonance sets in. Here I'm stuck. The scientist in me knows that I can't measure mind. I can't touch it. It's seen the data, the research. Fuck, I've done some of it! I know we're just cogs sewn together.

But there's this other part of me that feels I mean something more. And even if it's a lie, it almost seems a worthwhile ignorance to have. To believe I can make a difference, that I can be good or bad, and that it is I who chooses. I don't want to be another domino. I don't want to go with the flow anymore. I want to read and react. I want to be a believer again, even if I'm just believing in myself; or the will of humans.

Cause that's important to me. One of the reasons I'm not "religious" per se, is that I Love people. I find them interesting, strange, mysterious, beautiful. They're so damn neat!! Haha!! You see people everywhere though. Often, in a bad light. And, I don't want to believe in God, because I want to believe in people. If there is a God, great. But I want humans to fix our own mistakes, and take responsibility for our actions, cause, I know we can?

And the scientist in me says "No Nick... You believe we can. You hope we can."

So now, is the beginning of something old, as I revert to a previous state of self. I believe in people. I have hope for people. I believe in myself. I have hope for myself. And this is my choice. Enjoy.