I've never understood it, and I suppose I never will. Fate; I hate that word. It implies God's will. It disgraces the freedom you thought you had in making that choice. It has the power to choke your dreams or to bring two seemingly random events together from across oceans or great land masses.
"If it was meant to be..." Oh, how I hate that aphorism! And yet, I live by it and stand by it. Everything in my life was either meant to be, or not meant to be. The illusions of choice and consequence- it's all predetermined.
But by whom? God? Certainly not our mythical creator. The universe, perhaps, in all its mysterious glory. Within the vastness of that endless enigma contain the fibers and strands of our lives. Stretched across space and time are all possible futures beholden to you, me, and the rest of humanity.
It's so indistinct, this fate business. You don't feel it, you can't smell or taste it. Some people don't even believe in it. But I swear to you that it is there. I believe in it. Coincidences occur far too often to be dismissed as just that...
I have no concrete theory. There is no scientific proof. It's a feeling I have, and a lifetime of events and circumstances that either were, or weren't. Nothing more than that.
I used to spend hours lost in the possibility. Poised on the fine line between faith and knowledge, I'd wonder why this was the hand I was dealt. So many things were beyond my control. What is to become of me in the grand scheme of things?
And yet at every turn, I find myself absorbed in contradiction. I believe so strongly in fate, and at the same time, choice. I believe that making one choice over another can veer you off one path and onto the next. But there is only the illusion of choice, because once again we seek to find the definition of "path" as it used in this context.
I've delved, once before, into the dimensions. Seeking to understand even my own beliefs, I've considered the planes on which we exist and those above us which we cannot see. We are so disillusioned- At the top of the food chain and the masters of our world, we humans tend to forget how small we really are.
(I would venture, too, to say powerless, but that seems to go hand and hand with the ever popular argument of fate vs free will.)
I am remiss to believe that I am powerless in choosing my own destiny, but I am not so bold as to think that my destiny is of my own choosing.
We are molded and influenced constantly. From infancy, we spend our lives making discoveries that shape our personalities, which then leads us down our paths and to our destinies. How we feel, how we learn; occasionally we have a choice, but oftentimes there is none.
All we really have to cling to is right now. The present. The past is speculatory, the future a mystery; but right now. Right now I know exactly who I am, what I like, and what I want. Who knows what tomorrow will bring? That's the mystery of life.
We are clueless. We know so much and yet so little. We can't afford our delusions of grandeur. There is still so much to learn. But in that learning, as we move one day at a time, we will perhaps come to find that fate and free will have spiraled together. Maybe someday I'll come to understand that the two are one and the same. But for now, and amidst all my idle ramblings, I am filled with wonder.
Where will I go from here? Will I ever see you again?
