Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey

Is life merely the uncontrollable movement from one point in time to the next point in time?

Sometimes it feels like I am on an amusement park ride, where I have no control over where I am going or when I will get there. The ups and downs occur without any influence by me. I react to each, but rapidly are carried on to the next bend or dip in the ride. I know. Fate versus free will. A common and almost cliche discussion. But isn't this a common, cliched discussion because it is in fact the heart of our awareness as thinking beings?

Viewpoint One:  I go to work, go home, eat, sleep, attend to my parents,  attend to my kids, attend to my grand kids, attend to my wife, go to work again, all the while riding along on the coaster not able to control the ride therefore absolving myself from any responsibility.

Viewpoint Two: Life and time is not outside my control. It is in fact entirely under my control. I choose to become numb to the pattern of the coaster and ...of my own volition... decide to not do anything different. But I could change the ride. I could change the colors of the car. I could stop. Go backwards. Roll off the track and head in a new direction.

I believe in viewpoint two. But it is not that simple. We place obstacles in our own path which keep us from easily changing course. Responsibility and our personal moral code is one of the biggest obstacles. But I choose to erect these obstacles. I follow my path and my moral code, or else risk not being me.

So what do I do? What I've always done, of course. I do what allows me to continue to be me. What allows me to be comfortable with myself --I go to work, go home, eat, sleep, attend to my parents,  attend to my kids, attend to my grand kids, attend to my wife, go to work again. But the difference is, that in many varied and often subtle ways, I move forwards, backwards, or veer completely off the track. I read. I write. I re-arrange my garage. I sing songs from the Music Man at the top of my voice while mowing my yard. I steal time with my wife to visit a new place or to just have a quiet pizza together on the deck. I go off the track in my mind, while keeping my moral obstacles firmly (and proudly) in place.

Of course there is a third viewpoint. As Doctor Who maintains, "People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but *actually* from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint - it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly... time-y wimey... stuff."

So can I leap off the coaster, return to my past, leap into my future, appear simultaneously at multiple points of my present? Thereby getting the best of all viewpoints?

Believe me, I'm working on it.