Okay so now I understand that I’m always choosing, every moment is a choice. Okay, great. But what exactly am I choosing?

So, the definition per Google: an act of choosing between two or more possibilities.

Possibilities. Yes. We live in a universe of possibilities. While maybe not infinite, I have a choice set of an unimaginable size right now in front of me i.e. there’s thousands, millions of possibilities at this very moment. The catch is I can only ever ENACT one of these possibilities because my body and mind only exists in this time and this space right now. Damn man. Only one course of action is ever enacted, and therefore all the possibilities that we thought were possible never come to existence beyond our imagination (Quantum mechanics…pfff).

Importantly for me, possibilities denote future states. In the present, no other possibilities ever exist. Always the only thing going on is the action of the present. The possibilities exist in our imagination when we are doing the present action of analytically thinking about the future. Mindfuck. 

I think there’s two planes on which I can choose operationally what I am doing: 

1. What (actions) 
2. How (embodiments)

‘Action’ = Do. Move my limb. Talk. Whisper. Tap on a keyboard with my fingers. Okay cool. Reminder – we can only ‘act’ given the circumstances. We’re all physically limited by the virtue of being a human body, but it’s just to what extent. If I’m in the UK, I can’t physically be in the US with the click of the fingers. It’s not possible (yet). 

‘Embodiment’ is slightly more difficult. I have chosen ‘embodiment’ rather than ‘being’ because I think it has more physicalness to its meaning, but I guess that’s just semantics. To me it represents how physically and mentally you do the action, given that the mind is part of the body. It represents physical control and character.

I think we have agency (ability to choose) over both of these planes and they are equally important because we have the ability to control them. Imagine I was at the end of my life, I looked back at my life of cool-sounding actions but realised that I didn’t embody joyousness at all? I think that would suck and would mean I had not lived to my best potential. 

Here are some examples of the what/how in this very moment:

1. What – Sitting down
2. How – With good posture

1. What – Writing
2. How – With focus and creativity 

1. What – Chatting with partner
2. How – With lightness and relaxation

When I’ve been experimenting with this, I found that for actions that I am in the middle of, it is hard to track what I am embodying. ‘I don’t know’ is what I was writing a lot. Once I started asking the question though, I found that I wanted to know. 

That’s the point of having two dimensions. I can choose to drink water, yes fair, but how do I want to drink the water? Does it even matter to me how I do it? 

YES! I want to enjoy the water when I have it. I want to feel it in my mouth and my throat. I want to feel alive. I don’t want it to be a mere afterthought. Therefore I want to embody presence for drinking the water. Therefore I must choose to embody presence.

Similarly when walking to the shop the other day, I realised I couldn’t be anywhere else other than right there. I was right there, halfway between home and the shop, on the 22nd August 2023 at 17.47, walking. That realisation made me want to enjoy it – the motion of the walk, the feeling of the sun on my skin. I wanted to feel alive. I could only enjoy those things if I embodied presence. Therefore I chose to then embody presence.

I will continue to try out focussing on this way of thinking. 

Edits: 

• A side note, yes I understand that decision theory is a whole academic discipline devoted to decision making and statistics. However, what I’m trying to do is write about insights created from the tapestry of my own life, and so my writing will probably not tie into the serious stuff.

• There is a tension created from this, at least in my life. Yes, I want to live in the present moment and enjoy the show for what it is, but also, I need to use my analytical brain to help guide me, which doesn’t feel like presence.

• Also worth noting it’s purely semantics that ‘what’ and ‘how’ are separate. In reality, they are but one, but I think it’s easier to explain as though they were separate.

• ‘With’ as the connecting word only came to me at the end of this post. I think the connecting word could probably be better defined by ’embodied with’ or ’embodied by’, but ‘with’ is easier.