Roxanne Tellier – Canada Day and The Lie of Choice

Let’s let some talented Youtubers do the talking …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biq0NAF2e60&

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAYhT5f0i-I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHE-KqbZ7sg

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How critical is ‘choice’ in how we live our lives? The last time we were looking for a place to live, I began to see how little I really understood both the concept, and the reality, of choice.

After over 30 years of home ownership, we were neophytes at this rental game, and discovered quickly that everything had changed since the days when the local newspapers (remember those?) listed page after page of places to let.

And that really got me thinking – not just about the frustration of trying to find a decent rental in these anxious teens, but about how essential available choices are to our daily life.

Buying a house is the biggest financial decision that most people will deal with in a lifetime. When you begin house hunting, your agent will ask you to narrow down what it is you’d like in a home. You are asked how much you can spend, but also, what areas of the city or suburbs interest you, and what sort of structure do you picture when you envision your future. Do you fancy a bungalow? Split Level? A MacMansion? Something with a lot of land, or maybe something with as little necessary upkeep as possible?

But there’s also another factor in  that quest, and that is what is available at the time of your search. At any given time, there will be a finite amount of available homes from which to choose. And, depending on how much of a city explorer you have been, you may have defined a fairly narrow search area for your house hunt.

In the end, humans like to believe that they make decisions based on rational and carefully decided logic. But in fact, they are driven by the options before them, and the good salesmanship of the people that get them to choose.  The ‘shit or get off the pot moment’ is when the agent says, “ok … this one? or this one?” It’s not so much about how ‘right’ this one piece of property is over the other, it’s about the choice you can make, based on what is available, right now.

I have travelled all over the city, for business and pleasure, and I would consider myself fairly cognizant of what most Toronto neighbourhoods and local areas have to offer. But when I look for somewhere to live, I tend to stay within the same area that I have lived in since I first arrived here, in 1976. It’s not that I don’t LIKE other parts of the city, it’s that I’m more comfortable living in the East End. And so that is where I choose to look for accomodations.

And yet, given half a chance, would I live in an artist’s loft in the West End? You betcha. Or in a big house, up in Rosedale, with a view of the ravine? In a heartbeat. I’d enjoy any chance to see how others live and what other areas have to offer.

I just don’t immediately think of those areas when I’m looking for a place to live – because I’ve never lived there. The familiarity, the knowledge of the streets, the shops, the pubs, the people … I would have to learn all of those in order to best enjoy a new location.

Which is … again … a choice. I would have to choose to learn all about that new neighbourhood, and sometimes I feel like I’m just too old, tired, and lazy to go to all that trouble.

The sad truth is that we often think our choices only come in black or white, until someone introduces Technicolor into our lives.

Our love lives are also governed by limited choice. Whom we choose to fall in love with is often driven by our age, where we live, and how strong a sex drive one of the two in the couple have. Again, it may not be about Mr or Ms Right .. but Mr or Ms Right Now.

Most of us will have to live a lifetime to understand that the person without whom you could not bear to live another minute in your teens, is not necessarily the person you would choose in your twenties, thirties, forties or really, at any other point in your life.

People change, and the people you love, or even like, at one point, may be the person you literally cannot tolerate in another phase. That silly certainty that drove Romeo and Juliet to their deaths over a glimpsed ankle? Very romantic. Very teenaged. Highly irrational.

I’m gonna bet that neither Romeo nor Juliet had met a lot of people by that point in their short lives, and, by the end of the tale, neither one was ever gonna get any more chances to do so.  End of choices. Stuff happens.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CV9DMgVF-Nk

Our access to money – ours or our families – plays a huge role in our choices. We can be born into it, we can earn it, or we can lose it, and each of those options determine everything from how and where we live, to whom we have the opportunity to meet and marry.

Where we are born, and what colour skin we wear, will also have an enormous impact on the choices and options available to us. Not everything is open to everyone. The father and daughter that died this week on the Mexican border had made choices, and sadly, those choices turned out to be deadly.

But those that berate these sad victims for choosing to put their lives and their children’s lives in danger forget that life is only cozy and safe for some people – many others live in places filled with violence and terrorism. The two that died in that river were just two more people who made choices, based on the only choices they had – to fight or to flee.

That family were no different to my ancestors choosing a long sea journey from France, to try and start a new life in another country, free from the prejudices, crime, and politics of their own birthplace. I’m sure my maternal grandfather’s mother would rather not have given birth on a ship somewhere between Ireland and New York City, but there was that pesky famine going on back home. My gramma walked behind a covered wagon from South Dakota to Alberta, despite the many stories of those who died from that journey in the 1800s, from wild animals, disease, the rigours of crossing the Rocky Mountains, and the perils of encountering other humans who might wish them harm.

Choices. So many choices. What to eat, and what to drink, and what happens if you eat and drink the wrong things. Deciding to smoke, in order to fit in with your peers, and, fifty years later, being the one dying of emphysema. Opting to take drugs to temporarily numb the pain, only to find your whole life fitting easily into the plastic bag that rests beside you on the sidewalk you now call home ….

Choosing to learn how to best care for yourself and others; learning how to navigate the technology of your day; opting to reach for the stars rather than plod along like so many others who are afraid  of failure if they make the wrong choice …..

Choices – and consequence. Politics; elections have consequences. When we vote, not for someone good for our country, but to punish the person who didn’t fulfill all of our needs and dreams, we will face the consequences.

When old men, intent on feeling the thrill of virility again, launch a war that will be fought by young men … are the deaths of those soldiers their own choice? Or were the soldiers only offered two choices; to fight for their country, or to be deemed unpatriotic?

We like to think that we have all the choices in the world, but of course, the only choices you have are the ones you find in front of you, and those are based on this moment in time, and your current place in the cosmos.

We may not necessarily make the right choice, and these may not be all of the choices available to us, but each of us can always try to make the right choice for right now.

And, in the end, that’s the only choice we ever really have.

=RT=

Roxanne’s column appears here every Sunday 

Roxanne Tellier has been singing since she was 10 months old … no, really. Not like she’s telling anyone else how to live their lives, because she’s not judgmental, and most 10 month olds need a little more time to figure out how to hold a microphone. She has also been a vocalist with many acts, including Tangents, Lady, Performer, Mambo Jimi, and Delta Tango. In 2013 she co-hosted Bob Segarini’s podcast, The Bobcast, and, along with Bobert, will continue to seek out and destroy the people who cancelled ‘Bunheads’.