11.23.2004

fate and destiny

Do you believe in fate? Christians believe in working hard, being good, and praying a whole lot which suggests that what you make of your life is up to you (and the cooperation of "God"). With all the suffering and devastation in this world I'm really not sure how those folks keep up their faith. I know the black plague way back when actually caused a lot of people to lose faith and the church, in turn, lost power for a short while. Buddhists on the other hand are about accepting their circumstances, being good (so you can come back better in the next life), and dealing with the suffering that fate has dealt you. It's sometimes hard not to believe in fate. Although I don't believe in palm reading, anyone looking at my hand would see it's a huge fucking mess of lines all over the place. My hands look like they belong to an 80-year-old and many believe that means I'm destined for a hard life where nothing comes easy. I'm too scared to see a psychic because to an extent I think some of them are legit and I don't think anyone would have anything good to say for me. You can call it pessimism or you can call it believing in fate. I guess if you really believe in that strongly, you wouldn't be terribly motivated to do anything. Hmm.

2 comments:

Syndromes said...

I don't believe in destiny at all, for many reasons, but I like the idea of it in a romantic sense. Maybe that's called pessimism? :D

Ben said...

I believe it's all about your attitude. You can work hard all your life, but if you enjoy it and accept it and see the brighter parts of it, that's not such a bad thing. You can also find other ways around it. The trick is turning your head that one-one-billionth of a degree in which the Long Dark Teatime of the Soul shows you the parallel universe, and suddenly everything seems different. Different better, hopefully.