Friday, October 12, 2007

After it's all said and done

All the time now I keep wondering whether each little thing i do is in my control. It's driving me crazy because i keep going back to the same fate/freewill question or i think of even more questions. ITS HORRIBLE AND TAKING OVER MY LIFE. The worst part is i believe more in fate than freewill. Fate controls us so everything i do was determined a million billion years ago. That's not a comforting thought and i feel like a puppet. An image of human veins always pops into my head, running in all directions, some parallel, some touching. They represent the unbreakable strings of the puppet, or in other words, fate with it's iron grip on everything.

I guess my interpretation of fate is different from other peoples.
In Oedipus his fate was to kill his father and marry his mother. The main argument for fate in this story is whatever he decides to do he's screwed. Any path he takes will lead to that fate. So the freewill in the story is that he can decide the road (metaphorically) he takes but his fate of those 2 things (killing daddy, sleeping with mommy) will remain the same. But what if all of it, his entire life, every little thing he did, was fated to happen? His father was fated to hear the prophecy which would lead him to cast his son away to die in the mountains or wherever. Oedipus was fated to hear the prophecy causing him to leave his home in fear of what it told him. Instead of just 'sleeping with his mother and killing his father,' his entire life was planned out before he was even born. So the 'story' can never change.
I understand that there were gods in that story which isn't exactly realistic. And that the gods planned his fate instead of just fate.

My interpretation of fate doesn't have gods in it. For now it's pretty scientific---based on genes and environment. I was fated to want to change my fate (since i want control back even though i never had it). But no matter what i do fate is always a step ahead of me, or many steps, and me thinking too hard about this was fated to happen. The things that happen to me cause me to react. Fate knows my reactions since it knew the base of me (before i was born). By knowing the base of me (spirit) it knows everything about me since it can determine how i will react and grow in this world. So I'm envisioning some arrows in my head now, pointing from the pre-baby-spirit-thing's mind/emotions/reactions to the baby's mind/emotions/reactions to all the other changes. And of course there are layers to all that. And by the time i die all the arrows will probably show a circle.

I don't know that made any sense. The last part was confusing to me. Thanks to you ms. williams my brain will explode soon.

1 comment:

unknown said...

you're welcome. it's my job.