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72 Paralysis by Possibility— Unipossible and Multipossible Situations Unipossible situations are those in which only a single option is­perceived to be available. The choice is whether to accept the option or reject it. Multipossible situations offer more than one option. Extreme multipossible situations with many options may make an individual feel paralyzed, unable to select from among the possibilities. For example , common extreme multipossible situations may occur shortly after retirement, after winning a lottery, with sudden fame, and so forth. It can be argued that the natural tendency of most humans is to avoid extreme multipossible situations. The routine of going to a regular job at a regular time reduces perceived choices and thus eliminates the need for conscious evaluation and decision making at certain times. I have argued elsewhere that one of the functions of paranoia (everything is seen as threatening, dangerous), love (the loved one matters to the exclusion of others), and drugs (obtaining drugs and using them become the prime activity) is to simplify ­ choices, to reduce perceived multipossible situations to unipossible ones. Simplifying one’s life is a common priority for all of us. However, the ways in which we simplify it and the things we decide to eliminate are important . Take, for example, a bookshelf filled with many unread books compared with one holding only one or two unread books. Selection is quite a different matter in these two cases. As further examples, monastic Christianity and ­ monastic­ Buddhism serve to reduce stimuli and perceived choices for monks. 13 Paralysis by Possibility 73 It can be said that many aspects of culture—laws, economics,­ government—are designed to aid the members of that culture to­ reduce the number of choices available to them. Science, too, offers reduced options to scientists and others. One can imagine a future in which it will take all day to plan the menu, decide when and where to sleep, or select clothing for the day because there will be so many possibilities. The mind becomes cluttered, like a disorderly desktop with more and more added to the pile on top. One of the advantages of driving a car for long distances in silence is that one’s ideas shake down, get organized, even disappear . The mind becomes less cluttered. Becoming lost in one’s present activity is another way of temporarily putting aside the extra mental baggage we carry around. At some point we wake up and shoulder the baggage again, then lose ourselves in reality’s tasks, then return to the baggage—over and over. There are so many of us human beings. On television we can turn those others off, play them back, or skip their shows altogether. Yet every time we turn on the set they reappear, with their contrived enthusiasm and their screen-thin smiles. They stand in our way at sports events and delay our progress in supermarket checkout lines. It is necessary to get away from them—all of them—once in a while. The river that churns beside me here and now has no sensitive feelings that can be hurt, no endless words, no neediness. It just flows. In the process of flowing it cools and wears down rocks and feeds life and opens the land. Strange that with the passing of time I will want to go back to the city. One reason why reading books has the advantage over watching ordinary television programming is less in the programs’ content (there are some fine documentaries and thought-provoking dramas on television), but in the fact that live television is happening in real time, so you have no time to stop and ponder before the next event occurs. A book always waits while you pause for thought. Television can be more usefully watched on video recorder, so that the viewer can stop the program at any time and think. ...

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