Decisions, decisions...

It is amazing, the things you can learn from a story book. It is also pretty amazing how one thing you read can connect to so many threads in your life. Anyone that even casually knows me realizes that one of my favorite, and more admired authors is C.S. Lewis. I have been reading (slowly, but still going) his adult sci-fi trilogy "Out of the silent planet." I am currently working on the final, and longest book. There was a scene in the book that grabbed my attention, and I wasn't entirely sure as to why it interested me so much. It was something I had surely always, kind of, known. I think to some extent we are all aware because we have all experienced it. In this particular scene the main character, Mark, is with a number of his colleges in an intimate setting, discussing work that is to be done. The work Mark is about to do is morally corrupt, and Mark is quite aware of that fact. Mark explains that it is one of those moments, in the confidentiality of our peers, on a level playing field where we feel most accepted, that little evils slip into our lives so easily. The moment of consent is a blurr. Before we know it, in a store of laughter and smiles, we agree to do things that we may normally have not, or things that we even know in our hearts are wrong.

I find it amazing how easily decisions pass though our lives. Day to day hundreds of good, bad, and morally neutral decisions slide through. The bad decisions don't come with bells and whistles, the earth does not split, clouds do not blot out the sun. Good choices are not accompanied by a choir of angels, or pats on the back. For the most part, the heavens, and nature stays completely silent, as do our peers. Our lives consist of very little black and white. It is filled to the brim with grays of every hue. Just one step too far into the ocean can cause you to drowned. Just one step off the side walk can send you to the hospital. Just one yes, just one no, may completely change your world. It will be agreed to, or rejected before you even have time to really examine what you are standing before. As our societies advance and our lives become fuller and busier it is likely that our decisions will slip by faster, and more silently than before. Not to say there are not decisions that present themselves in our lives that we may spend days mulling over, but there are more decisions that slip by us.

The thought that struck me is, I feel this uncertainty of life on a daily basis. Things you believe should be concrete and clear often present themselves in a fashion that is muddy, middle-of-the-road. What person does not know who they are? I don't. I have changed so much over the last five or ten years of my life I feel as though I am a totally different being than I was at one point in time. How can you be unclear on who you are as a person. I am never clear on where my life is going or what I am supposed to do with it. Feelings are more often than not, very confusing. Are you angry or are you sad? Are you trepidacious or happy? In many situations we are multiple things. Will the haze be lifted from our understanding? I believe in an absolute truth, a absolute black and white line, because you cannot make grey without black or white. Sometime I simply think we are a bit colorblind.

For these thoughts I can only thank the deep understanding C.S. Lewis had of the human condition, and the ability he has to portray it. He often tells of things in ways that you know that thought has been stalking you all your life, but until you read it in his words, it never reached out and grabbed hold of you.