Choice starts in the Imagination

1595: 

If we aren’t sure about our direction in life, we can use our imagination to foresee another place, another dimension, where people rather like us are doing the things we do, but very differently.

They don't go with the flow necessarily. For big decisions, including what their main energy source is going to be, they consult first with their conscience, to see if a choice is connected to ethical energy. These imagined people are more subjective than us. They're more intuitive and confident, but at first glance they seem similar to the disciplinarians we knew from the past. They seem to be doing ‘good’ all over the place. Ugh! It's sickly sweet.

So, let's try again.

Now, we let these ‘imagined people’ tell us things about ourselves, but not to encourage us towards ‘goodness’ as such, more like common sense. Theirs is, after all, only the voice of an all-round, engaged-conscience.

If we want pleasant possibilities for the future, it's going to depend on restoring a balance between being too clever and being too heart-driven. The conscience, being the chief chooser-of-things, lets some doubtful things through, stops some, encourages others, and these are 'things' we want or we think we need and can choose to have. We, living Western lifestyles, can afford to buy so much that we want that we've slackened off on the conscience, to avoid missing out, for a better run, to 'get ahead'.

The mystery of life, the game and fun of it as well as the conscience of it, has been largely left behind. We humans are now perpetually on-the-chase. And we know, at least in a material sense, that our 'dreams' could come true. Westerners have inherited generations of privilege, largely by our ancestors ripping off the rest of the world. With our sharp brains we've 'built' opportunities, suitable for those of us who are 'materially privileged', and for those of us who are educated as to how to take full advantage of that privilege. But as it turns out, too much of our brilliance has been self-benefitting leaving behind a lot of damage, that even Nature can't fix up. But perhaps we can fix it.

We’ve arrived here, in this present age, with one thing to our advantage. And it's unique to our species and to this time - it's a type of fuller consciousness. Today we know what we’ve done, we’re aware of our mistakes and various destructions. And some are willing to learn from these mistakes, even though they weren't responsible for them. We're becoming aware of our potential to repair. And that's down to having enough awareness of what’s happened, followed by our having a consciousness of consciousness itself. In that one way, today, we are alive to it all. We don’t have to see ourselves as automatons, or as being controlled by big business or as having to rely on supernatural forces. We can be self-guiding, since today we are aware of the human potential for being both destructive and creative. We both have a choice and are aware of our opportunity for choice. I doubt if any earlier generations have either had so much reason to repair but also so much freedom to choose what most needs repair.