Follow your heart kid, and you'll never go wrong.

This ongoing sequence of events and circumstances that have made our present self into what it is at this moment has an inertia that governs itself and propels itself forward in increments that are statistically likely to occur. These events need no effort on our part, they are a result of their own history. We have the potential ability to affect this vast wave of circumstance, to change events, to influence this flow in very fundamental ways.

But for the most part the entire world, not being aware that there is anything pushing it forward, believing its every action to be self-created and self-determined, exists on reflex alone and allows the incidents of their lives to just happen as they are likely to do. Of course, we do give thought to our lives, making decisions in a considered and calculated manner, but we do not realize that the mental processes we use to think these thoughts and make all of these considerations are as much a product of the great inertial wave as the uncalculated behavior of water in a stream or of a breeze blowing through a forest of leaves.

Even our thoughts are as forcefully propelled by all past experience as our actions are. Our reason, our judgement, our morals and our discernment, all qualities that we cherish and revere, are only the products of history, mythology, egoism and evolution. As such, we must always consider them suspect, and subject them to the most rigorous scrutiny. To understand this is a large part of achieving some degree of influence over our life, but it is like an addict’s recognition of his dependency—seeing the truth doesn’t make difficult goals easy to accomplish. Still, it is a crucial step if there is any hope of success at all.

When we become aware of the circumstantial forces that propel us blindly through our lives, only then can we put our efforts into changing our course toward a more considered future. When we can think about thinking, when we can consciously consider the unexamined shadows that linger behind our reflexive thoughts, then we have some hope of achieving influence over the situation.