The Freedom to Choose
A couple days ago, I struck up a conversation with a stranger and it lasted well into the two hour range. While talking to them, we covered a broad range of topics, and one of them was regarding marriage and relationships. I told them that, in my first year of university, I challenged everything I had previously assumed would happen in my life as well as large number of my views. I attacked them viciously to see if I believed them for what they were or because it had always been impressed on me to hold these values, believing them without any merit of their own. Among these was, as I segued in from, marriage and relationships: whether I'd ever want to get married; whether it'd be traditional; the possibility of polygamy; sexual orientation, etc. Some came more automatically than others, but when I mentioned to my conversation partner that I'd given thought to the possibility of polygamy/open-relationships, they were surprised that I'd ever considered that and wondered why I was even thinking about that.
One common response that most people throw at me when they hear that I've considered obscure or often unrelated-to-everyday-life things is that I have too much time on my hands and/or that I think too much. I don't understand the concept of thinking too much unless the person doesn't act. But I act! Oh baby, do I ever act! Sorry, that's another can of worms altogether. I answered their query about why I was thinking about such a topic by referencing a philosopher I'd recently been introduced to (though, he's never going to meet me): Sartre.
Sartre believed firmly in a person's freedom and was adamant about people asserting said freedom. We cannot choose whether to participate or not; we are still a part of everything was a sentiment often expressed by Sartre. He felt that in every activity, we have a choice to act and respond in any of an infinite number of ways. It was not only an option to act, it was forced upon us, condemned to the freedom of choice where inactivity was still an activity. In many ways he is right, which may be surprising to hear me say considering I am a determinist. He believed that we had the responsibility and ability to choose how to react even to things that were inevitable to happen. Take the most inevitable thing possible: our own death. He held that we could choose, at least to some degree, how we would die (e.g. through how we lived, suicide, etc.). It is through this theory through which I explained why I was thinking about polygamy; It is our responsibility to consider our view on something and how we may act in the face of it, or else be surprised when we act in a way we'd never before considered. In such a circumstance, you could surprise even yourself with a reaction that could betray your intentions or give away information about yourself you'd prefer you hadn't. I'd liken it to saying things in anger.
Now, I don't want to hear anyone whining and complaining about how "Oh, but I didn't have a choice! I had to do it!"; I'm not condemning you for anything, but Sartre would have held that we had the choice to go against what we did, and whatever consequences that came with such actions. We have ultimate choice, regardless. We can still choose to kill someone, do drugs, stand up for someone despite a huge mob, scream obscenities in the street at 3am, and the like. Despite what can come from it, the option is still open to us. That's all I'm taking from what he's saying at this time at least, and it's the very reason I like to weigh my opinions on obscure matters.
Now, what can you take away from this? Well, who am I to tell you that? I suppose that if you truly buy into Sartre's theories, it's an ultimately freeing way to think of things. You have the choice to act in any way you want, so take that and run with it.
