Tango chose you

These great thinkers would say that tango chose you*

I love the beautiful, poetic idea that tango chooses us, and we are merely submitted to its pull.  At least for me, I am persuaded that tango chose me.  I say this not only as a poetic idea but also as a philosophical and even scientific hypothesis. I am also persuaded that tango chose you, too.

That, I realize, is a shocking statement in a world that generally believes in a so-called Free Will — something that some say God gave us as a blessing — or is it a curse? However, many ancient and modern philosophers, physicists, and even theologians have questioned Free Will.  I rejected their ideas until recently. [For the portrait above, see the footnote below.]  But for now, let's focus on the beautiful, poetic idea. Maybe you, too, feel that there is something deeply true about tango choosing us. So I will express it first in poetic terms before considering predestination philosophy. 

This is my story:

Tango Chose Me
Tango beguiles me. I have no choice.
T called me once, and I turned away.
The DJ played a crackly old disk,
Recorded with one mic last century--
An acoustic nightmare for my ears.
I left the place, vowing never to return.
The seductress's voice of salsa
Forced me into my dance shoes, not Tango.
But years later, T's name was again invoked
In a bicycle shop.
"Come dance it once," said the flirty one.
How could I say no?  I had no choice.
Salsa gave way to tango that night.
The warm embrace,
The unprescribed infinitude of steps,
The hidden African voices, deeply buried
By instruments from Europe,
And the abrazo community of dancers.
I had no choice.
Tango chose me.

You May Believe in Predestination (without knowing it)
Most modern people agree with predestination without thinking about it. For example, these days, the whims of the god of thunder, or some other god, are not consulted by the meteorologist.  Nor do you have fear of a man on the corner who tells you lightning will strike you.  Instead, you consult the weather "forecast" to know your future danger of a lightning strike if you are concerned by his curse. The weather forecast nowadays is a result of the use of computer models and satellites that attempt to summarize the endless factors that predetermine our weather.  If the forecaster gets it wrong, we do not return to consulting the gods.

Some background to Tango (and everything else) choosing us, not us choosing it
Let's get the free-will ego out of the way. According to Stoic philosophy, for most of our lives, we have regretted or been proud of our choices.  But were they really our choices or the consequences of many hidden factors?  Does the stream choose its own course? Or is the stream's course determined by countless factors on the day you observe the new swerve in its marvelous course?  Here are some examples:

•  Did any person who has ever lived choose to use his or her parents' language, or the language of their culture?  Did Free Will help with that decision, or was it predestined?
• If parents go to college, do their children “choose” college too, or was it a statistical probability to follow patterns of behavior of their family or clan?  
• What about "exceptions"? Should I be proud that I was the first person in my bloodline to graduate from a university? No! Many factors brought that all about. These factors humble me more than make me proud.  
• Even the free-will ego manifests itself in people on a spiritual path.  At a retreat, five Buddhist monks told us of their calling. Every single one of them "chose" their monastic path because of unfaithful women in their lives. The current of life chose their monastic path.
• I have met many Argentinians who never danced tango until they moved to America and Europe.  From new circumstances, tango chose them because in their new country, they wanted to rediscover their national identity.  Tango chose them.
• One of the most powerful influences that determines our wrongly perceived free-will choice comes from our social environment.  In the famous 'Rat Park' experiments, researchers found that rats in a cold, isolated cage would choose drugged water until they died. They were predestined by their environment. But when rats were moved to 'Rat Park'—a community with space, toys, and other rats—they chose the clear water. They chose life.  Awareness of our environment's influence on our decisions, even in a luxurious 'cage,' is what finally allows us what the philosopher, Yuval Noah Harari, called the 2% small-but-mighty freedom to choose important changes. This is only possible when we become aware of internal and external algorithms influencing us. What are some of the few real choices that you can make? In our tango park, are you stuck on using only the open embrace? Are your figures disconnected from the music? Are you shunning people at a milonga, refusing to even smile at them? Can you choose something new, or will you go to your grave like this?  Can you open up the embrace because there is more room, and your partner seems uncomfortable with a close embrace? Are you a teacher or an "advanced dancer" who hasn't taken a lesson for a decade?  Tiger Woods has a coach.  What makes you so special? Making real choices usually means leaving a comfort zone, breaking the algorithm. Face your fears and your perception of having infinite choices via your Free Will. You only have a few if you become more aware of your algorithm of predetermined choices.
  

Destiny and Tango
Tango is not something special.  Nor am I.  But without tango or any individual on the planet, the universe (as a puzzle) would not be complete on God's table.**  There would be missing pieces. We may be insignificant, but nevertheless, necessary to complete the "puzzle" of the Universe.  

Tango chose you, too.

**Note:  God's table as described by Baruch Spinoza and Albert Einstein.

______________
Coming soon in another blog post:  Which Tango Embrace Chose You?

*The "portrait" above is of thinkers—which I requested Gemini to "paint"—who were convinced that Free Will is the ego's delusion. It represents over 2,000 years of reasoned thought. Predestination has merely changed names—from the Logos, to Grace, to Decree, to Substance, to Physics, and finally to societal and biochemical Algorithms. (Yuval Noah Harari didn't want to be in the same room with Calvin and Saint Paul, but he belongs among them as a modern philosopher of history and the dangers of AI.)

• Baruch Spinoza (Seated, far left): Viewed the universe as a singular, deterministic substance where everything follows mathematical necessity.

• Albert Einstein (Standing, back left): A fan of Spinoza who famously said, "God does not play dice." He believed even our "free" actions are part of rigid physical causality.

• Marcus Aurelius (Seated, center-left): The Stoic Emperor who believed in the Logos—a divine order. He taught that we must find peace by flowing with the cosmic river, not fighting it.

• John Calvin (Standing, center-back): The architect of "Double Predestination." He believed every soul’s destination was written before time began. (A brittle cosmology I personally reject.)

• Arthur Schopenhauer (Seated, center-right): A bridge to the modern era who noted, "A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants." He understood that our desires (like the urge to dance) come from a source deeper than our conscious "choice."

• Saint Augustine of Hippo (Seated, far right): Argued that the human will is "shackled" by its own nature and needs an outside act of Grace to be moved. Perhaps, for some of us, Tango is that grace?

• St. Paul (Standing, far right): The biblical source of the "Potter and the Clay" metaphor. While a pillar of history, I often wonder if he was predestined to favor "Decree" over the fluid experience of ergos (works).