Imagine a world where you never had to choose between anything. Your breakfast, your nightlife, the computer game you play during lecture – everything would be planned for you in advance and you’d coast through life like Ben Affleck after meeting Matt Damon.
Some people would reject this choice-less utopia, but now that Six Flags is bankrupt, I think it sounds like the happiest place on earth. Decisions are the root of all anxiety in the world, and, just like tuna fish smoothies, I never want to make one again.
Choice is just something we’d be better off without. How much time, patience and hair have you lost making mundane decisions? Paper or plastic? Undershirt or no undershirt? Rubber or no rubber? We’re not even qualified to make most of these choices. I never took a Gatorade tasting course telling me Riptide Rush goes better with chicken strips than Fierce Melon, but I still make this decision on a daily basis and that’s just wrong (for a lot of reasons, actually).
Indecision has been the cause of 89 percent of the world’s problems, according to a recent made-up statistic. Indecision attacked Pearl Harbor when the Japanese couldn’t decide if they wanted to spend the frequent flyer miles to bomb California. Indecision destroyed Pompeii when Mt. Vesuvius didn’t know if it should break the seal too early and ended up just bursting (that can happen, be careful). Think what other disasters could have been avoided with a little more blind obedience and a little less free will (Terrell Owens’ career?).
I was reading a scholarly journal about arranged marriage practices in India (by reading I mean watching, and by journal I mean The Simpsons episode where Apu gets married) and I couldn’t help but admire the glorious simplicity of it all. Boy meets girl. Boy marries girl. If boy and girl don’t get along, or boy has a drinking problem, or girl turns out not to be girl at all, it’s neither boy, girl nor boygirl’s fault. They didn’t pick each other. In our new decision-free utopia, we can arrange everything like this: course schedules, hangover meals for Sunday mornings (Clarke’s, Sarkis or more beer?), even plastic surgeries. It’s all possible (just ask K.G.), and it’s all good (just ask Bob Dylan).
I officially forfeit my right to choose. About anything. Ever. If I can’t control it, there’s no use worrying about it. What’s done is done, like the Seinfeld finale or Lindsay Lohan behind 7-11 for a gram of coke. A world without choice would be one without crowded Blockbuster stores, hurt feelings at kickball team selections and even guilt. Courts would actually have to start finding people lucky or unlucky. The idea isn’t perfect. It has its pros and cons, pluses and minuses, Peytons and Elis, but sometimes you gotta roll the dice and take a chance (just ask the Monopoly guy). It could be the end of all stress and worry or the loss of everything that makes us free and human. Either way, I don’t want to have to choose.
Weinberg senior David Moss can be reached at [email protected].