Tonight i was folding boxes to prepare to move out of our house. These are special boxes that Chowon picked out for us — they have lids  and they hold their shape without tape.

I’m very tired, and I’m somewhat distracted because I’m watching Gundam for the first time while i work. After folding 17 of the 20 boxes, i noticed something interesting to me. One of the steps in the fold involves folding part of the box into thirds, arranging another part of the box to make room, and then unfolding the thirds. They’re not perfect thirds, but it’s more like a 30-40-30 fold or worse. For all 17 of those boxes, when unfolding the thirds again, i had a mini debate with myself about which side to unfold first, and considered the shape of their eventual position, asking myself which would be more efficient, or if it made a difference. Each time, I made my decision and absentmindedly catalogued the result against the whole. On the 18th box, it struck me that the folds overlapped in such a way that I never actually  had a choice. I could only unfold the top piece first. For all prior boxes i had deceived myself not only into thinking i had a choice, but to thinking that i had consciously and intelligently chosen this or that piece.

Being tired and distracted is my excuse for making such a simple error, but having felt that once, i can see myself making the same error for a much more complex decision while sober and focused, if the decision presented itself appropriately.

How many ways am i deceiving myself right now? What decisions do I carefully and thoughtfully make without actually having having a choice? Is the decision making process itself, in general, a waste of time?

Maybe I have no choice in anything, and the complexity of life obfuscates its determinism.

“My face has changed, but you know it’s me. You know by the stillness in my voice.”

P.S this is again from my phone. You know. — typos