Choices

"We are the choices we make in the moment, as you said" -Abraham von Brunt

I've always found it amazing how film and television can approach such deep topics for discussion. The quote above comes from the most recent episode of Fox's Sleepy Hollow that I could access (because I have to wait for the episodes are released a week after they air I am perpetually a week behind). If you watch the show, I applaud you on your good taste in television, I will also put a spoiler warning here just in case you haven't seen Sleepy Hollow Season 2 Episode 11 "Magnus Opus".

*SPOILER ALERT*

In this episode Ichabod Crane and Abigail Mills, the Two Witnesses, are faced with Moloch come to Earth and about to usher in the End of Days. While looking through the diary of one of Mills's ancestors they find mention of the Sword of Enoch, a weapon they can use to banish Moloch from his earthly form. Upon finding the hiding spot they find it is guarded by a Gorgon, from ancient Greek myth, a creature that can turn any living being to stone with a killer gaze. Determining they need someone who cannot meet the Gorgon's gaze to fight the monster so they can get the sword, Crane and Mills lure Abraham von Brunt, Crane's former best friend and Horseman of Death/Headless Horseman to the spot. While the Headless Horseman wrestles with the monster, the two heroes sneak into the caves and find many swords. Faced with the fact that it will take time to find the correct sword, Crane goes off to face his former best friend and buy Mills some time.

During their battle Crane and the Headless Horseman (who now appears with his head, because... cave magic, you know?) openly discuss their past as friends and the "betrayal" that von Brunt sees. Abraham blames Ichabod for what he has become yelling "I was suppose to be the hero of this story, not the villain!" But Ichabod reminds Abraham that he chose to take up the mantle of Death and to follow Moloch, "Two Choices made in an instant" that sealed his fate.

*END OF SPOILERS*

When it comes down to it, the quote that I opened this post with really is true. Who we were in the past, who we are today, and who we will become, all is dependent on our choices. We might not have chosen to which family or which circumstance we were born, we might not have chosen the specific challenges and hardships we face in this life. But in the end we chose to come here and be born. And we've been making choices all our lives. Right now I am choosing to write this down. Right now you are choosing to read this. We choose our future through our choices in the present.

Time is like an hourglass. At the top of the hour glass is the past, at the bottom is the future. We are constantly in the middle of this hourglass, in the narrow neck of time. We only have control of our present. So many choices have led us to where we are now. Our grandparents chose where to live and how to raise their children, those choices were influenced by their parents choices and so on and so forth. Our parents decided to have children and that's when we were born and all the years of our lives have been filled with choices that lead to us now. The choices we make in our present time will influence our future, our children's future, and, ultimately, the future of worlds.

Although the world is such a big place, we exist in the narrow space that is our present time. We only can control our present, but we have influence over infinity because of our choices. We are the choices made in the moment. And we always have choice.