Much Ado about NOTHING

After months and months of listening to audiobooks and perusing novels on an e-reader, I'm actually reading a genuine ink, paper and glue book now. That's mostly because I picked it up for free from the give-away table at work. (I'm employed by a company in the publishing biz). The title is The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2006, so it's a bit dated but amusing nonetheless.

One of the brief essays near the beginning argues that there is no such thing as free will, that our sense of conscious self-hood is an illusion, and that we're all essentially automatons responding to stimuli, like ants or robots. So I only think that I decided to read a conventional book because it looked interesting; that's just a story I tell myself. Actually, my preprogramed personality quirks, combined with a conducive environment, made it inevitable that I would pick up this book and begin to read it -- that "I" had a choice in the matter is just a delusion. Similarly, I don't blog here because I choose to. I'm conditioned to think I do, but actually I have no choice, any more than an ant has a choice about taking a crumb back to its ant hill.

And you? You have no choice but to read this and keep coming back for more, despite the story you're telling yourself about my always enjoyable way with words. Looks like we're stuck with each other.