ABSTRACT
Re¯ection on the contemplative and other positions makes one aware of how many different `selves' or aspects of the self can be inhabited, some involuntarily and even against one's conscious wishes, others more voluntarily. Some of the most important of one's `selves' accrue slowly, perhaps over a lifetime, as a result of important moments of active, `self-de®ning' decision which are looked back on, later, as landmarks in one's personal history. Sooner or later, in any life, the issue comes up of such decision: choices, for example, of career and sexual partnership ± including the avoidance or postponement of such choices ± which are inescapable to anyone living an ordinary life in Western society. In other societies where, for example, marriages may be more or less forcefully `arranged' by the person's family, the element of choice remains present but is partially shifted to the decision whether one will participate whole-heartedly in the arrangement, or subvert it in one of a number of ways that are socially recognised if not necessarily approved (for example, brothels, gambling, drink, quarrelling, extravagant piety).
