memoir note: Thou will be what thou wilt be.

I had a vision when I was a kid in which I saw a statue deep in the recesses of my own mind. There was no head on the statue. At the foot of the statue it said, "Thou wilt be what thou wilt be."

I realized even as a kid the incredible double nature of this inscription. On one hand it could mean "thou will it to be what thou will it to be." You will be what you will yourself to be, which is about self determination. On the other hand it means "Thou will be what thou will be," which is closer to something like fate. ("wilt" is an archaic word, used in second person singular. E.g. "I will", "Thou wilt") How can both things be true at once? I knew that the balance was somewhere between the two, that I didn't have to strive, and neither did I NOT have to strive, that I could strive... striveless.

This doubleness comes back to me in the Rilke poem that ends, "You must change your life." Does this mean you need to willfully change your life? Or does it mean you must change your life, as in, you don't have a choice?

I should mention, for fun, that this statue-vision came to me in a meditation lead by the actor that played Starbuck in the hit TV show "Battlestar Galactica". My dad was at a conference selling Moldevite, and there were workshops. This guy, Dirk Benedict, who played Starbuck, was giving one of the workshops.

Starbuck helped guide me to my own future.