…all come with a price. The cost of doing business so to speak. The consequences of our inactions are just as consequential as the action itself. Everything comes in threes, right? You’ve heard it before. Celebrity deaths seem to happen in threes even if it’s more like five. Good things come in threes. Bad things come in threes. The Holy Trinity. Three strikes you’re out. Third time’s the charm. So why three? Fuck if I know, but I have a theory.
We may think the smallest number of things we could possibly choose from is two, right? Yes or no. Stay or go. Good or bad. Point A to point B. Left or right. Night or day. The list goes on.
If you are a lover of psychology you know it is all logical. A lover of philosophy understands that not everything can be solved by logic. Assume logically you have to choose A or B. You have to make a choice. You can only choose one or the other. This has always bothered me, and in turn I didn’t do very well in my college psychology class. Philosophy I aced. Go figure. I had been told do just that a good many years ago, and because I chose neither, or refused to choose one of the given options, I was removed from the question group and put to the side. I refused to believe that I had to pick one of two options I didn’t want anything to do with, nor did I think either one was correct. But in doing so and choosing not to choose, I created option C. Option C was not even an option, but I stood my ground. Once I chose not to choose, I opened up a door that in turn created additional “non-choosers.” So at least I had some friends in my refusal group. Woohoo!! We didn’t get to participate with the two groups, but we got to enjoy hanging out and discussing why we ended up in our own little club of outcasts.
And so it seems to go in life with other things. Life is not black and white. Those who truly see that life is full of inexplicable wonders, understand this third option. The trifecta. Life or death. Choose to live, or choose to die. We all know we will never make it out of this life that we know alive, and we also know that just because someone is alive doesn’t mean they are truly living. Even with the dead, do they not still go on living in our hearts, minds, and the energies around us? I’m not just talking about ghosts or things that catch your eye in the mirror as you walk past. If you have ever been still in a place of death, you can sense it. The air is heavy, the hairs on the back of your neck stand at attention, overwhelming sadness seeps into your skin. It’s the same with places of happiness and joy, where the living come together in order to feel good or smile or laugh. I don’t know many people who would choose to go to a comedy show to cry. Just like people who visit cemeteries don’t typically go there to laugh. Even day and night has an option three: an eclipse.
In all honesty I have no idea why this popped into my head to write about. I am obviously procrastinating from doing something else that needs to be done, but I guess it’s better than doing absolutely nothing. Maybe? There are times when I want to write but can’t. There are times I don’t want to write but have to. And there are times when I don’t plan to write but need to and do it while I’m able.
I guess to tie this in with my current life situation, I can choose to move on and live my life to the fullest, or I can choose to live in the past while not being fully present. But neither of those choices sound fulfilling to me in either way. Are we not told to learn from the past? Reflect on the past? Remember the good times? Are we not told to plan for the future? Set life goals? Look ahead? And while doing both of those things we are reminded to be in the now, be present, enjoy today as if there won’t be a tomorrow, because we truly do not know when our time has come to an end. When life makes the decision for us. Even when we are given choices, there’s that third option that comes into play. Sometimes the third option isn’t even ours to choose.
For example, why do we hear about the people who work hard their entire lives but always seam to be beaten down by life? The ones who give everything without question but never seem to get anything back? The strugglers? The givers? The weary? Aren’t we taught that if we work hard, are kind, good people, it will come back to us? Are we missing something? Look at people who seem to have it easy. It’s as if some can dance through life without a care, haven’t worked a hard day in their life, and things are given to them without being asked or even needed. What third option has come into play with these? Seriously though, if you know the secrets to this I’d really like to not have to work until I die. I sorta have a thought on this as well.
Growing up a good Christian girl, I went to private schools, read the Bible, accepted Jesus, went to church, and I asked for forgiveness of my sins. And though I don’t pray as often as others say I should, or go to church even for Easter or Christmas Eve. I swear more than the typical sailor, have a dirtier mind than most would care to admit, and seem to come off as someone who worships trees, and yet I can’t seem to forget all the things I had been brought up to believe. Yes. I believe in God (in a slightly different way). Do I believe the only way to connect with God is through church or being with others of the same belief? No. Does that mean I want to hang out with a bunch of assholes who murder kittens? Absolutely not! But that doesn’t mean I have denounced all the teachings and parables and songs and lessons. The wisdom passed from generation to generation is a guide, a gift, and a warning.
So why the hell am I talking about my spirituality? Because it is my influential third option. Because growing up I was taught that my entire life is already known. My plans have already been laid out. That somehow I still have a choice baffles the shit out of me. That even if I choose either A or B, it doesn’t fucking matter, because C was already chosen for me. I may want to spend the rest of my life with a partner rather than without, but obviously that doesn’t always work out. I don’t know, maybe my plan is to die surrounded by my cats who will eventually get hungry and realize that eyeballs are a delicacy? Maybe I will spend my life with someone only to have them die first? Maybe I will be involved in a head-on collision tomorrow, because someone wasn’t paying attention and had to answer a text and didn’t react in time when they drifted into my lane? I don’t know! The third option is a killer! Or it could be. Yikes!
Call it fate. Call it destiny. Perhaps it’s option C through option infinity? All I know for sure is that I won’t always be given a choice between one thing and another thing. Even the black and white becomes gray. The day can be dark. The night can be bright. I can choose to work until I die in order to continue living my life comfortably. I can choose to be happy or sad, but I gotta tell ya, it’s hard enough choosing to be ok. Being sad is exhausting. Being happy is exhausting. Being present can also be exhausting, but it’s a choice. Look, Yoda may have said do or do not, there is no try, but is that really all there is? I mean, if you don’t try something how do you know you’ll like it or even want to do it? What about practice makes perfect? Isn’t that just a better way of saying you’re trying to be better at what you are doing?
And again we see why I did not do well at all in psychology. I question everything. I learn something about everything I can. I start hundreds of projects and never seem to finish most if any of them. I am trying my best to live my life and pretend believing I am actually trying to live my life. I feel disillusioned. The more I learn, the more I see, the more I know I am not in control of anything. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it does make it more difficult to live life as though I haven’t peeked behind its curtain. There’s no wizard there. There’s no control center where I can push a button and continue dreaming. There’s nothing there but another curtain. And once you peaked through the next curtain, you find another curtain. So you stand there and try to look up and see if maybe there are some curtain rods to count how many more curtains you have to go through, but you can only see the one you’re facing. You look down, believing the light and shadow from beneath the curtain gives a brief hope that there is something behind this one, only to realize the curtains beyond are moving to an eternal breeze, shifting light and shadow, and reinforcing an illusion you so desperately want to believe.
Options A or B or C are all inherently illusions, and life is filled with choices, as we all know. Do you choose to see the magic trick never wanting to know how it’s accomplished, or do you want to know how the magic trick works? Or, for your third option, do you choose to learn how it works but continue living as if you never saw it? That you continue to believe in the wonder and excitement even knowing it isn’t what it seems? The disillusioned are seen as being negative. That knowing how something works or why it works takes the fun and joy out of seeing it work. And all I can think is why wouldn’t you want to learn more? I don’t want to spend my life only learning about one, single thing. How disappointing that would be when there’s nothing else to know. And even though the more I learn the more I see comes into play, it doesn’t make me want to stop learning. It doesn’t make me not want to start yet another project I will most likely never complete. It doesn’t prevent me from adding more and more to my bucket list even when I know I have less and less time to do any of those things.
So I’ll continue living my life neither the good way nor the easy way, but more like whatever option three decides to throw at me. In reality, it isn’t even my choice to begin with, but I can still choose to see what it has in store. Bring it, option three! Let’s see what you got!
-Bonnie
No matter what my option three may end up being, I still stop to smell flowers and to watch butterflies flutter by. I smile at others and open and hold doors. I make my PB&J in two folded-over halves. I pause for those fleeting moments when a deep breath of the air around me and the view before me yearn for me to take them in and enjoy the present, and I am reminded that my choices are all part of how I ended up in that place, regardless that I did not opt for a flat tire to stop me in the middle of nowhere forcing me to stop for a damn second and let go of what I can’t control. Thank you Option C. I am forever grateful for your interference. Good or bad. And whatever is in the middle.
