...and selection.

One of the major cornerstones of the faith I was raised in but do not profess anymore is the idea of free choice. We can choose good or evil, etc.

One of the reasons why I no longer profess that faith, or indeed consider any religion to have a claim on what they call my soul, is that while they tell me I have this free choice, they also told me that I had, simply be being born, chosen evil, and in fact, could never, of my own volition, choose good.

OK - so if I'm bound to choose evil, and have already done so, why should I even try to be good? As in a good girl, a good daughter, a good citizen...well, you get the idea that I thought their logic faulty and irrational.

However, enough of the religious implications of free choice, let me rather talk about the exercising of this in the marketplace.

More than any other era in history, we live in the consumer society. We no longer produce simply what we need to keep us warm, well fed and safe, no, the majority of goods out there have the sole purpose of entertaining us.

And here choice really does enter the equation in a big way - rejection of models, books, movies etc. are so much part and parcel of everyday life we are not even aware of the fact that our decisions, our choices, are impacting on someone's life.

The JK Rowling story is well known - truly rags to riches, but how many other struggling writers are there, whose books are also on the remainder piles, and who never get chosen by someone who starts the ball rolling by raving about how fantastic the book is? Similarly, how many movies that are every bit as great as Gone with the Wind end up straight to DVD? And take their director and cast with them into obscurity?

How ready would we be to make a choice if we knew that by rejecting an item, any item, we are perhaps ruining a life?