BECAUSE WE ARE NOT PUPPETS

Life is an adventure, whether or not you want it to be. Every human being who has ever lived, even Buddha, Socrates, Jesus, and Mohammad, was thrust out into unexpected Adventure Land after a mostly sanguine, non-personal nine month physical development in the liquid cave of womb it didn’t enter into deliberately. Conception is an accident, a chance meeting of a random sperm with an egg waiting to be fertilized... or not. The sexual encounter that leads to fertilization, whether outrageous rape, quiet acquiescence or the culmination of devotion and desire, is an event very different in kind from conception. One is sociological; the other is biological. The fetus developing from a fertilized egg is not a sentient being, is not a decision-maker, is completely at the mercy of natural and sociological forces absolutely beyond its control. The adventure begins with birth, expulsion from the small watery cave out into the world of breath and air.

Every individual from the instant of birth is an incarnation, an embodiment, a manifestation of a person... perhaps an avatar. The creature very gradually begins to choose. At some point instinct and impulse give way to deliberate response. It is at that point in life that the adventure begins. For some the sanguine womb existence ends terrifyingly... or it may transition easily into a mostly idyllic, comfortable physically and emotionally nurturing environment. The creature has no choice at the beginning of life as a person. Gradually, as the adventure of living develops, he begins to choose, not what the human condition is into which he was born, but how he will react to it. The human condition into which he was born and must live limits choices. Self-actualization begins when the individual becomes aware of options and begins to exercise the ability to choose.

I write this journal entry two days before the seventy-sixth annual birthday since my personal adventure began. I am writing on a plane from San Diego to Atlanta with Margaret. We will change to a plane that will take us to Paris. From there we will go on to Athens. We have chosen this adventure. From the beginning of this adventure, it was one option among many; but how it goes will to some extend depend on the choices we will make in the land of Socrates and Aristotle. On this and every day, I want to remain keenly aware of my rare good fortune to be able to choose.