Alternatives
September 23, 1974 (bsn)
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Alternatives
To choose one of many alternatives
Is not to live
But merely to exist.

I may obtain my food through
An almost infinite array of activities.
I must choose one.

I am told the existence of these alternatives,
Choice defines the good life.

If I play it smart,
I can avoid almost all threats to my survival.
This is a second character of the good life.
The first is life itself.

Any choice of action that results in a threat
To my survival is stupid.
For the alternative makes such a choice suicidal
My time is consumed by choosing

But my power to control desire and aversion
Makes choice irrelevant.
Ah yes, I know,
It is choice that determines free will;
But environment determines choice;
And laws determine environment;
And gods determine laws.

But no matter,
For whatever I choose,
My control of desire and aversion
Allows the choice to be good,
Or God or Satan if I so choose.

Since I possess choice of
Survival or destruction,
I only exist in clouds of choices
That ensure survival,
Because I survive.

The ultimate challenge is denied.
Survival is not a reward,
Merely a choice among alternatives.
With choice adjusted to desire,
No rewards are real.

Seeming rewards are merely
The illusory products
Of random choice,
Since all choice serves desire.

But were the alternatives reduced to two
Survival or death,
Not reduced by choice but by necessity
Then reward would be possible.
Perhaps the heroics of war are rooted
In such a feeling of real reward.

To choose one of two possible alternatives:
Life or Death,
Is not to exist, but to live.
For life is survival in face of its challenges.