A journal of commentary, narrative and poetry about navigating through life

the flame

February 25, 2004

Forks, Free Will, and Servants

"We are not living in a world where all roads are radii of a circle and where all, if followed long enough, will therefore draw gradually nearer and finally meet at the centre: rather in a world where every road, after a few miles, forks into two, and each of these into two again, and at each fork you must make a decision. Even on the biological level, life is not like a pool but like a tree. It does not move towards unity but away from it and [all life] grows further apart as they increase in [number and definition]."
- C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce. pp. 5-6

How true that is for me. I have learned that as a possessor of a free will, I must daily decide whom and what I will serve, which path I will follow at the forks in the road that daily rise up before me. Without explicitly resolving and daily reconfirming this I become buffeted about by every circumstance, a servant of every whim that travels across the pathways of my mind. I am acutely aware, after this many years of living, that I will serve something or someone; the question is whom or what? I allow that some can express this more lyrically than I:

"You may be an ambassador to England or France,
You may like to gamble, you might like to dance,
You may be the heavyweight champion of the world,
You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls

                                        ...

You may be a state trooper, you might be a young Turk,
You may be the head of some big TV network,
You may be rich or poor, you may be blind or lame,
You may be living in another country under another name

                                       ...

"You may be a construction worker working on a home,
You may be living in a mansion or you might live in a dome,
You might own guns and you might even own tanks,
You might be somebody's landlord, you might even own banks

                                       ...

You may be a preacher with your spiritual pride,
You may be a city councilman taking bribes on the side,
You may be workin' in a barbershop, you may know how to cut hair,
You may be somebody's mistress, may be somebody's heir

                                      ...

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You're gonna have to serve somebody,
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody." 
 

(Copyright ©1979 Bob Dylan, Special Rider Music)

 

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