Of Lost Control…
Of Lost Control…
One of the fundamental basis on which our society functions, or any society for that matter, is the fact that we control our lives. On a broader level some people might argue that this control is rarely with us. We are answerable to so many other ‘beings’ or institutes or rules that we rarely do what we want to. But perhaps at some level ‘control’ has to be attributed to each and everyone. Otherwise how would we ordain people as ‘saints’ and others as ‘sinners?’ How would we justify the existence of reward and punishment? How would we link our worldly lives to the hereafter? Control therefore, it seems, more by need then by practical sense, is attributed to every individual. Yes, we say, we…the all of us are responsible for everything we do; quite simply the good will go to heaven and the bad to hell.
Say you open your cupboard in the morning to pick a shirt to wear to office. For simplicity lets assume there are only three shirts in there, a red one, a blue one and a white one. What do you think will go through your mind during the Shirt Selection process? E.g. you love the color white? You wore the red shirt yesterday? The blue shirt has a button missing? Etc.
Say you throw a dice in the air, it rolls down and a six appears. What factors do you think affected the appearing of the six? The effort with which you threw the dice? The rate at which air was flowing? The way you held the dice? The surface on which the dice landed? Etc.
Say you give 10 Rupees to a beggar. What made you conduct such an act of generosity? Your parents taught you to help other people? You had 10 Rupees lying on the cars dashboard, and what better use then to give to a beggar? You think this act of kindness will add to you tally of ‘good deeds’ and will improve your chances of gaining a entry pass to heaven?
Say you are a suicide bomber. I hope you are getting the picture…
It would seem there are two parts that develop or contribute to our personalities. The first part constitutes the physical attributes we are born with; these attributes are handed over to us or assigned to us. These might include:
The color of our eyes?
Our sex (male / female)?
How tall we will be?
How smart we will be (say the IQ level; mostly controlled by the neuron density in our brain)?
How will we look (to a large extent)?
We have no say in any of the above mentioned parameters, or more correctly we are assigned these features / attributes with no input from us.
The second part of our personalities is gradually developed as we interact with our environment. This interaction continues to shape our personality, we learn from it, we make mistakes and we continue to grow. The environment might include our family, our teachers, our friends, the education we get / not get etc. This learning process continues to reshape us for the rest of our lives. To a large extent we don’t even select the environment we are born into, we don’t select our family, our house, our basic education etc.
The way our lives our build is based on these handful of physical attributes (we are born with) and interacting with the external environment. This interaction continues to build our personality and reshaping it. Both the two parts mentioned above are not in an individual’s control; we neither we select the attributes we are born with nor we select the environment we are born in. The rest that follows is based on this interaction. Is it plausible that we have no part to play in the way our personalities our built? It is evident that we don’t have any input in either of the two factors mentioned before.
Now let’s come back to the case of any decision we make in life, whether it’s the selection of a shirt to wear, deciding on a suicide mission, selecting what to major in, which school / university to go to. Again all the decisions we make are based on a million things that go through our mind before we make the decision. All those things that go through our mind are based on our personality and the external environment. At any one point whichever decision we make is based on the way our personality is build do date.
Control of any decision we make is an illusion. Even if we were to repeat an event a million times over, an individual would still make the same decision. You for example would select the blue shirt to wear to office tomorrow. If you were to throw a dice in the air it would come down as a six. If you were a suicide bomber, you would…
The reason why every event / decision we make will generate the same result is because all variables remain constant. Even if a million variables like your mood, your personality, the air temperature etc. were involved they will all remain the same, if we were to rewind time and press replay. In short control is an illusion. None of us has any choice whatsoever in the decisions we make. So if today is the 5th of February 2007 and we were to stop time and replay it for you the 5th of February will have all the same events to the last millisecond. Nothing will change in your personality and nothing will change in the external environment. All the events of the 5th of February will occur exactly the same way.
A serial killer or a saint had absolutely no control over what they are or have become. They were given a fixed set of parameters based on which they interacted with their external environment and which in turn shaped their personalities. If we were to give them another chance they will still go through the same events in their lives and make the exact same decisions.
I leave it to the readers to further read into the above mentioned theory and give their comments. Would appreciate your feedback.
Very interesting article!
If I am correct than according to this theory if we track the history of an individual we can tell what profession he will choose what color shirt will he wear in a certain circumstance in fact even tell will he be a suicide bomber or not!!
But a few questions come to my mind!
Lets take an example of a female friend of mine who is always been exposed to the so called modern side of society. Her schooling friends & parents, every element in her life tells you that she has been exposed to liberating opinions & actions…then why suddenly this female chose to become extremely religious cover her face & hands, stop watching TV or listen to songs! When her background implicates other wise? Is it not true that no matter what environment we grow up in we have the ability to question the decisions we make & act upon them differently!! Though all of us may not have the will power to do so!!…we know what path is to be taken but do not choose it just because one might seem easier than the other?
Your theory is interesting but not uncommon. The idea of having no control over your life is a famous one though belief in it takes away from mankind its most important power of decision making, reducing us to mere puppets.
I agree with your stance of every single decision being influenced by a thousand factors that one has no control over yet man has been given the power of going against his pre-set values and Sobia’s example above perfectly illustrates that.
The no control view, in my estimation, is an easy way out of struggle.
you misunderstand…. i suggest u give it some more thought…..the above example actually re-enforces the theory. If the girl came from a different cultural background and due to some special circumstance / event / or maybe she just ‘came to’ decide to become religious….the point is she would have made the same decision whatsoever. Say she was 25 years etc. months old –> again if we were to make her go to the age of 24 (somehow stopping time and taking it back 1 year); then replaying she would again turn religious at age 25. Because that is what she is. She thought it was a deliberate choice…but she dint really have a choice. Its not about circumstances shaping people…as circumstances shape everyone differently. Its about how they shaped that 1 particular person;
And the above mentioned theory is trying to explain things –> it has got nothing to do with things being easy / difficult. Its the way things are….
Perhaps another way to put things in perspective could be say sachin tendulkar goes to bat against Australia. He gets a bouncer the first ball; he decides to duck the ball hits his glove it goes in the air; ponting dives to catch it but he misses by a whisker.
You know what things went behind this simple act? I dont but perhaps they were 1) tendulkar doesnt like bouncers 2) tendulkar wants to score quickly 3) it was a flood night match; the lights blinded ponting 4) ponting was carrying a injury on his right catching hand….etc etc. NOTE: That doesnt mean ponting dint try! It also doesnt mean Tendulkar dint try! It also doesnt mean the bowler dint try….what it means is the event could have had only 1 outcome. We just think there were other possibilites.
Asim your theory is interesting and nicely put forward. However it also relieves us of all responsibilities in our lives. I wish things were this simple. I agree history repeats itself and circumstances prepare the consequences, however the individual herself and her will are also an important ingredient to the output curry.
I think Nietzsche thought in these very same lines before he rejected all nations / thoughts / beliefs and started with the basic assumption “I think therefore I am” and came up with existentialism. You think, and the article above is ample proof of that, and therefore you are, what it all boils down to is whether you can take the leap to reject everything and then begin the over-drawn process of reaching conclusions, and making (in the true sense of the word) informed decisions.
There is also a movie about making the same decisions in another more universal context “The Fountain”, I would suggest you give it a watch.
Loved the article…