“Man’s Choice There Be”

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“Man’s choice there be.”

(Please excuse, if possible, my lack of attribution for these words. You see, they came to me, mixed and jumbled, but in this sequence, from separate sentences of a scholarly article I was reading, whose title and author I forget, as the acute phase of my breakdown was commencing.)

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“Man’s choice there be.” Choice. What do these words mean? What did they mean in the context of my breakdown? Of anyone’s “breakdown”? Of my life? Of ANYONE’S life?

Of LIFE?

What did these words mean then? And what do they continue to mean now?

If anything?

If anything at all?

Anything at all.

Please tell me because I would like to know. Perhaps this meaning would help me understand… Help YOU understand… Help ANYONE understand… Or, at least, provide meaning to all the pain, suffering, and loss… (I REALLY don’t mean to overemphasize this, and I, certainly, do not wish to be “over-indulgent” in sharing this, but… DAMN, it hurt so fucking much.)

Dear, Lord, please HELP ME TO UNDERSTAND (a “prayer” with no action…)

Was it “choice”? No, I do not believe so, unless, insofar as I once heard someone suggest, our birth, itself, is a choice. A choice to be opened up to the world, or the consequence of our “choice,” of our being, at the “beginning.” That is, ultimately, what “choice” is: the “decision” to “take a fork in the road” (to paraphrase Yogi Berra). Either one, or one of many. The point is, you proceed down a certain path that other paths diverge from. There “is no going back.” (Maybe? I guess? I don’t know). But, once again, the meaning behind “choice” is hidden in the root of the word, as well. In this case “dēcīdere,” the Latin root of “decision,” which means “to cut off, cut out, mark by cutting, settle, choose as a course of action.” We make a “cut,” choose a path where the road we are on diverges.

The problem was, possibly, I think, maybe, I did not “choose.” I followed a path, I suppose, whatever “path” I was on, but did not either notice… or, at least, take… a divergent road. Or know that it existed. Or know, and understand, that I was ALLOWED to know that it existed, least ways actually TAKE it.

“Man’s choice there be.” Perhaps it was a warning. Or a “signpost,” i.e., “this is the path you HAVE chosen and are now on. There IS no going back.”

No, there is “no going back,” but there is a road…

Forward.

“Tally-ho!”

The Elysian Fields await…

Eternal spring.