Bright blue sky and early campervan morning sunshine this morning. The serious wind and rain from yesterday has left its mark. The oak has shed a few branches and some other debris lies around me, some clearing needing to be done. The ground remains saturated under foot. It’s quite chilly with the remnants of a breeze occasionally blowing through. Not a cloud in the sky, the warm glowing under bellies of aircraft pass over and the hum of far off traffic sit in the air. A lone magpie in the ash, I can hear the blackbird, but can’t yet see them, starlings have been absent over the last morning or two so it does seem a little less busy. Having to work a bit to pick out birdsong, but happy enough to sit and watch the morning unfold. It’s a bit of a blank morning, this morning. A busy day yesterday leaves me once more reflecting on the groups I worked with and the various challenges they face. How they react and try and adapt to the lives around them to the choices they have made, some in desperate circumstances. Bad choices made, because they were the least worse option available. Now in a position to try and rid themselves of these choices, rather than carry them around with them. Sartre says that we are our choices, but I ask myself who am I to judge and what would I have done in similar circumstances. The process has had me look back at some of my choices and where they took me. Also those I did not make and where they took me as well. Choices around friendships, work, lifestyle, direction and people. Choices in the here and now and those for the future. The writer George Eliot wrote that :
"The strongest principle of growth lies in the human choice."
The power that some of us have to chose. The balanced arguments that we are able to make in order to make a decision and a choice. Those that are less fortunate and the choice is made for them or the support, values and foundations we take for granted are just not there. I am not sure where I am going with this this morning. I find myself rallying against the idea that we all have the freedom to make choices. For many they are just laid out in front of us and we go along with them, with an assumption that it’s the right thing to do, with no thought to the value of the decision made. It’s a bit muddled once more this morning, but the idea of choices is rattling around. Lovely days people.
“ Choice of attention - to pay attention to this and ignore that - is to the inner life what choice of action is to the outer. In both cases, a man is responsible for his choice and must accept the consequences, whatever they may be.” W. H. Auden.
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