Choice
Within ISITism, Choice is understood as a fundamental feature of Reality itself, not merely an occasional event in human life. Existence presents an infinite succession of potential decision points—each moment carrying the possibility of a different action, a different response, or even a different thought. Most of the time, this potential remains unnoticed. We continue along momentum, habit, or routine, repeating familiar patterns with only minor variation. This is not a failure of choice; it is choice operating quietly, beneath conscious attention.
This distinction reveals why choice is an ISish concept. Choice exists prior to outcomes, prior to justification, and prior to closure. It lives in the immediacy of experience, not in retrospective analysis. When we simply keep doing what we were doing, we are still choosing—choosing continuity, familiarity, and the path of least resistance. When awareness is low, choice collapses into habit. When awareness increases, choice re-emerges as possibility. The difference is not the presence or absence of choice, but the degree of consciousness with which it is engaged.
Occasionally, choice rises into full visibility. These are the moments when we consciously choose to make a decision that dramatically alters the trajectory of our lives and often the lives of others. Such moments feel weighty precisely because they expose the ISish nature of choice: uncertainty, risk, and irreversibility are suddenly undeniable. No amount of calculation can fully resolve what lies ahead. These moments stand in contrast to routine not because choice suddenly appears, but because awareness finally meets it head-on.
From an ISITist perspective, the key insight is that the capacity to choose is present in every moment, regardless of whether we exercise it consciously. Outcomes, habits, and consequences belong to the ITistic domain—they are the structures that form after choice has already occurred. Choice itself remains upstream, living in IS as pure agency and possibility. ISITism does not urge constant dramatic action; it invites recognition. To see that even maintaining the status quo is a choice is to reclaim authorship of one’s life.
In this way, choice becomes a powerful lens for understanding the deeper distinction between IS and IT. Choice teaches us what IS feels like from the inside: active, immediate, and alive with potential. Patterns, routines, and results teach us what IT feels like: stable, repeatable, and defined. ISITism reminds us that life is not lived in the structures we inherit, but in the choosing that quietly precedes them—moment by moment, whether we notice it or not.