MAKE GOOD CHOICES

Awhile back I thought to relate some encounters we’ve had along the way, particularly those that feature people’s thoughts on the cosmos and all things macro. Not that we’re great extroverted conversationalists or anything, but it does seem that people are easier to talk to when you’re moho’ing about the country.

Let me tell you about Mike, not his real name. I talked with him a few feet away from a live band, and a few more feet away from a bar. You get the picture.

Mike is thirty eight years old. He is an active fellow, apparently a semi-pro athlete back in the day. He still enjoys skiing and fishing and all of that. He’s even done some heli-skiing.

When I told him about my blog, he was more than willing to share his thoughts, which, in brief are: a) he is a fatalist, or determinist, and b) nobody has ever had an original thought.

From what I could gather, Mike encountered a book called Jacques the Fatalist when he was young, and that made a fatalist out of him. There are probably many layers to that story, which he either didn’t relate or I couldn’t hear, but the bottom line is that all the events of his life, and the reading of that book, made him a fatalist, or determinist. Free will is an illusion. Meaning is what you make it, and, in the end, doesn’t matter. Conscience is a social construct. And so on. It reminded me very much of B.F. Skinner’s book Beyond Freedom and Dignity, which was all the rage when I was young. I read it, but it never stuck. Not like Jacques the Fatalist stuck with Mike.

Mike’s second point was a kind of cousin of his first thought, namely that no one has ever had an original thought. “Have you ever had an original thought?” he asked me, and, “do you know anybody who has ever had an original thought?” To be honest, I was stumped. An original thought. Hmmm. A couple of days later, which is when all good rejoinders occur to you, I wished I would have asked, “what about the guy who first asked that question? Isn’t that an original thought?” But I never thought of it at the time.

Mike was forthcoming, even animated, during this discussion. He did note that he is somewhat of an anomaly in that he enjoys talking philosophy, speculating that maybe 1 percent or less of the populace is so inclined. He also noted that at one time these considerations had been unsettling for him, but now he has made peace with them. He’s in a better place.

What I observed during this conversation was not so much about what Mike was saying but how I was reacting to it. I really am interested to hear what people think and how they came to that, but I’m not so good at just listening. I have to suppress the urge to counter or argue if I don’t agree with what’s being said. Why is it so hard to just hear what people think without arguing with them? It’s a skill I hope to acquire, maybe this week.

That said, I’m not a fatalist/determinist, but that’s beside the point, or was for that conversation. Mike was good enough to share his thoughts, which I appreciated. I saw him briefly the next morning and made some lame joke about choices, which he smiled at. Looked like he wasn’t resentful about being interrogated the previous evening, which is good.

Interesting conversation. I hadn’t heard of Jacques the Fatalist before, so I just might choose to look it up. Or not. Depends which way I’ve been programmed I guess.

Thanks to Mike. And thanks to the band that was playing. Really good band. How it should be of a summer’s eve.