Tag Archives: fate

A Point of no return

Leave a comment

A stopwatch thumb clicking down to zero. We are hurtling toward an impossible recovery window, and the fate of the future rests in the hands of the next anointed leader of the free world.

Partisanship aside, that’s a terrifying concept. If we slide our chips to the center of the table, is the action anything more than a clenched-jaw “wing and a prayer” blindfolded dart toss?

Stakes are impossibly high, and we are sprinting along the edge of an unfinished bridge. Hands clasped tightly over ears, there is an absurd reluctance to embrace the inevitability of fate beneath the towering mountain of science playing the crucial part of a canary in the coal mine.

So do we choose to be silent observers or screaming warriors? Should we take a pass or take a swing? Regret is a nasty little rash, so some active engagement might prevent a life of head-swimming insomnia or a ceaseless swarm of butterflies in the belfry.

Sitting on the sidelines is not an option when the planet’s very survival hangs in the balance. Unfortunately, the countless species of creatures who continue to be affected by the savage stripping and polluting of their homes still lack the opposable thumbs needed to pull those levers in a voting booth.

They’re counting on you to do what’s right. We all are.

Adolescence Interrupted

Dropping Shoes

2 Comments

falling1

“Western man has tried for too many centuries to fool himself that he lives in a rational world. No. There’s a story about a man who, while walking along the street, was almost hit on the head and killed by an enormous falling beam. This was his moment of realization that he did not live in a rational world but a world in which men’s lives can be cut off by a random blow on the head, and the discovery shook him so deeply that he was impelled to leave his wife and children, who were the major part of his old, rational world. My own response to the wild unpredictability of the universe has been to write stories, to play the piano, to read, listen to music, look at paintings—not that the world may become explainable and reasonable but that I may rejoice in the freedom which unaccountability gives us.” ― Madeleine L’Engle

The headaches are back. They’re not the “bad” kind, so I guess they’re simply the “new” kind. Either way, a giant debilitating pause button has surfaced, and after far too much research and straw grasping, I’ve decided they are best classified as migraines.

Now I’ve always touted the fact that I never got migraines, and I even specifically mentioned it in my book. It seemed more than fair that after all the brain-based obstacles and excruciating pressure pain endured from the complications associated with hydrocephalus that I would be spared any additional suffering once those symptoms retreated. But that’s just not how life works.

We can plan and plot and cross our fingers that once we emerge from the flames, the fire can’t catch us. But whatever is burning behind is also burning ahead. Living is navigating, and no amount of precaution can halt the birth of unforeseeable variables. Duck and weave. Jump and slide.

There is no crystal ball, and no chance for a second take. The cards slid from the dealer are the result of universal randomness and haphazard order. We can play or fold, but the odds won’t transform with a fresh deck.

So instead of analyzing all the ways we might lose if the fates decide it’s not our day to soak in the sunshine, let’s just pull up a seat and roll the dice.

Adolescence Interrupted

The Insecurity of Security

Leave a comment

worried1There is no such thing as an unfettered path. When the cards are all placed neatly in stacks, ready for their integration on the tower, a gale blows in to splash them across the ground. We can’t rewind the clock or reset the decks. It was fate that they found the floor.

Acceptance of these uncontrollable universal slaps in the face is never easy. Regardless of conscientious strategies or meticulous safeguards, we remain at the whim of unknown, and unforeseen, variables. Life is a spinning roulette wheel, and we’re left playing a number and hoping for the best.

It is the reluctance of this acceptance that speaks to the core of our collective weakness. We want to fix the game. We want guarantees and assurances that the moves we make are the most prudent, considerate, and cautiously plotted. No one should be left holding an empty bucket and wondering where it all went wrong. But someone must…and someone will.

Those winds will continue to blow, and we’ll find ourselves on our knees, sweeping up the broken pieces of our plans. We’ll lament the fact that we’re tested and we’ll gnash our teeth and clench our fists. But a deep breath and the acknowledgment that road spikes aren’t laid to stop the race but merely puncture the tire, can help us bandage the bruises and find that finish line.

So, it’s imperative that we soak up every second of the good stuff before life decides we’ve had our fill. Best days are easily followed by bad, and vice versa. Allow the variables to exist without fighting their inevitability and all that extra energy can be spent on the people and moments that really matter.

Coincidentally Cool

2 Comments

coolCoincidence is “the occurrence of events that happen at the same time by accident, but seem to have some connection.” But, how much of what we believe is accidental is simply an energetic or universal pull toward a specific outcome? Can we manifest results through the catalyst of our subconscious and its ability to focus so throughly on some predetermined consequence that we are fooled into believing we are the orchestrators of our own fate?

There are strong arguments on both sides of the debate because what we deem to be coincidental can be so unfathomably absurd that we’re left searching for explanations to justify the illogicality of anything that appears to dance in the space between hard-nosed facts and dreamlike fantasy.

Mystics will look to the Earth’s more magical properties, just as religious zealots  will point to their blind devotion and faith-driven divinity as justifications for anything that sits outside of conventional knowledge.

But, what if we all harnessed the ability to construct our destinies? What if, somewhere in the untapped territories of our brain, existed the tools necessary to write our own blueprints, and build individualized templates? Could we avoid a life of pitfalls, blunders, and misunderstandings?

Irony is a powerful concept and the bevy of impossibilities that consistently defy probability is part of what makes life worth exploring. If walking in the sand was only about following footprints, we’d likely feel the void of uncertainties and a desperate lack of adventure.

Until we resolve the dispute of whether or not we are merely mice on a maze, running tirelessly toward preordained cheese, let’s marvel in the coincidental nature of the human playground. Maybe we are assembled with safeguards to protect ourselves from excessive rates of evolution. Maybe we’re not meant to know anything more than how many monkey bar swings we have left in our limbs…at least for now.