Blog > Thoughts > Sean's Thoughts > It’s a question of choice, or is it?
It’s a question of choice, or is it?
Written by Sean on Tuesday, September 26, 2006
I have received an email from a young woman with a disability, and the exchange of email has proven very interesting so far. Part of what we’ve been discussing is the concept of choice. As in, we (transabled) can chose to stop using the wheelchair at any time, we don’t really know what it’s like. I’m simplifying her position quite a bit, but it’s not so much about what she said, as much as what it prompted me to think.
Choice… Strange concept
So here I was, soaking in a bath, or perhaps simmering in the tub, since the water was so hot. And thinking about these emails, and the idea of "choice". So many things come to mind.
First, I pointed out to my correspondant that I never chose to have the feelings I have. Most of the folks I know who have BIID never chose to be that way. It was there. No more, no less. Because if it was a choice to have the transabled feelings, I guarantee that the majority of us would not pick those feelings. We’re not in it because it’s fun. We’re not consciously making a decision at some point that "this looks like fun, I’m gonna be transabled now" But that was a point that she agreed on to begin with. A simple error in communication made it appear differently.
There’s also the choice of what level of injury, or what impairment to have. But again, this wasn’t a choice for me. It was there since the very beginning. I was 3 or 4, and wanted to be paralysed. I had no idea what "paralysis" really meant at the time. In fact, I believed that your legs were stuck in one position, like wooden limbs. But I knew already that I should be paralysed from about the belly button down. It’s only much later that I discovered that paralysis didn’t usually mean rigid legs, and that from the belly button down meant an injury around L1. It is also later that I learned about spinal cord injuries, when I was 3 or 4, I was clueless. So while it might appear that I chose my preferred impairment, it really only happened to me, it has been there, with me, for as long as I can remember.
So, this leaves the issue of choice about whether to use the chair or not. And yes, I do have the choice in some ways. I can chose not to wheel and be (more) miserable. Or I can chose to wheel and manage to be functional throughout the day.
Now that I’m not known as a para, I can opt for walking as appropriate. Only to me, it’s never appropriate. When I was known as a para, that option was removed from me, I didn’t have the choice: Known as a para meant that I couldn’t be walking at all, not in public anyway. There was reassurance in the inability to opt out. So I guess that I do have a choice, yes, but it’s a choice I’d much rather not have. Take it away, please. I don’t want it.
Of course, everything in life is a choice. Some choices are simply not acceptable, or not viable, or… Ohh, I dunno, you just can’t opt for them. Other choices, you can handle, even if you don’t like the deal. But by and large it could be argued that one always has the choice. Or *a* choice anyway. Because if you’re missing a leg, you can’t suddenly chose to grow a new one. I’m sure you get my point.
So yeah! On the surface, I appear to have access to many choices on many issues. But digging a bit more, one realises that these so-called choices were no choices at all. And what’s left are options I’d rather not have at all.
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5 Comments
One of the benefits of wearing a leg brace most of the time is that I don’t have a choice about limping; and running seems out of the question. I *have* actually seen people run with a single KAFO, but it seems like a very difficult technique.
The best situations for me are when I’m around someone who thinks I’m paraplegic, or nearly so, for extended periods of time. The choice of how to do things is taken away.
I choose to put myself in situations where I have no choice.
I know, Sean, what you are talking about because I experience that same thing. Not with a wheelchair or braces, but with my strong glasses instead. Since the time I started wearing strong minus glasses over plus contact lenses I never go out without the glasses. All the people around, my friends, clients, and neighbours know me as the severely visually impaired man.
I did not choose to be a man whose body image is a severely nearsighted man. Never ever. It has been inside my mind and heart since my early childhood. Furtunately, I made the right choice a few years ago and started pretending the visual impairment full time.
@Bobby. What an awesome solution to this manifestation! I don’t recall coming across this before. Excellent!
5 On 22 May, 2009, Phil said:
Choice. It seems that life is choice. But what is choice? (And what is life?) The closer you look, the less you know what you are looking at or talking about.
There are philosophers and religious teachers who say that, for example:
- the life we live now, with most of its circumstances and problems, has been chosen by us before birth, when we decided to come (back) to this world and to come to just the couple who became our parents,
- that the best choice we can make is let us fall in God’s hand, give up our own will, follow the Christ in us, swing with the vibes of life or cosmos, … (you get the basic meaning)
- that choice is not something to be “made” at one time and then executed, but choice takes place every milli-second,
- that we should follow our rationality, our stomach, our heart, or all of these together, to make good decisions,
- that we don’t HAVE a choice at all (the free will being just a nice illusion we are comfortable with),
- that overcoming ourselves, which means overcoming our desires, needs, drives, greed, wishes, etc. would make us mature humans,
- that one never knows what the right choice is before one has made it and experienced the consequences, and that all choices are the right ones,
- that we can learn to improve our awareness of ourselves and our intuition, and thus learn to make better choices,
- that we cannot choose most things (the Bible says you cannot let grow one single hair on your head, so how can you think you are the master of your life?),
- that we only can GIVE ourselves and our choices a meaning,
etc. etc.
This is all so confusing.
We all seem to HAVE a certain choice and we obviously choose every day, because: if we had no choice, we would all be injured or dead by now, because we would not have been ABLE to keep away from railroad tracks or something like that.
I have found that there is a small “window” for choice even in this chaos of BIID. Sometimes, I can be so centered, aware, relaxed that BIID is unimportant and just floats away like a cloud. But I lose this state of mind (it is more than a state of mind only, it is about all of me) very often, and maybe I can only reach it when BIID is low for some other reason or without any reason.
The thought that I might have chosen in the core of myself this life including BIID, gives me some ease – I don’t know if it’s true, but it could be true.
This doesn’t solve the problem and doesn’t tell me what to do. But it makes it easier to integrate and accept it and to give it some meaning.
I’m afraid this all can be understood – it is too late and I am confused, as most of the time…
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1 On 20 October, 2006, rorschach said:
I think that there is still a difference, though quite slight. Mainly when it comes to life and death situations. You’re knocked out of your chair, there’s a grenade, minus the pin of course, near you. There’s also a perfectly safe wall to hide behind if only you got up and ran.
For the paraplegic, running completely is not an option. You would be stuck between a grenade and a hard place. Even if you’ve already thought it out, there is still that lingering option.
Sorry to split hairs there Sean, I just couldn’t help myself.