He had a sense of choosing in which the choice was between going along with the opportunities and suggestions that life delivered or refusing them in full awareness that he was doing so. There was, after all, no rule to the effect that he should always like or feel a readiness for what was presented to him on his way, but he had learned that any such refusal had consequences which were generally not to his liking. Nothing was ever predictable, either way. The actions suggested were always recognisable and so were generally understood as repetitions, but every time he ventured down the same path the journey was entirely different, expectation was defeated at every turn, often in humourous ways, but in ways which had little bearing on the general destination. In the past there was a sense that life might have an important message for him if he could only follow the clues to find it, but now it was only a matter of meanders and eddies, the purpose of the journey being just the journeying. And so did it really make any difference whether he chose or refused? It seemed not, and all the less so since he'd come to recognise that he himself was the journey.