Do you believe in fate?
What about destiny?
Are these existential questions based in religious belief or a way of looking at the world to help understand that all encompassing question…
WHY?
Why did I stub my toe this morning?
Why did my wife leave me?
Why did I choose this career?
Why are we here?
Do you think it’s realistic to believe that had you not been fated to stub your toe this morning, you might have been hit by that car getting the paper at the end of the driveway?
Or is that just a lucky coincidence? But then, luck doesn’t exist either – does it?
Did you choose your destiny? You had too much wine last night and didn’t want to bend over to put your shoes on this morning and so through a series of personal choices you made, you set in motion the natural sequence of events leading to a sore foot instead of a trip to the hospital?
How much of what we do in life is purely coincidental? and how much do believe is preordained either by an external force/entity or simply our genetic make up? If you’d been able to hold your liquor, this morning’s toe-stubbing incident might have gone completely different… you might have even chose to walk the dog by cutting across the front yard whereby completely changing any notion of events set in motion…
This struggle with the idea of fate and destiny – the notion of what is true vs. what is imagined keeps us wondering, “What if…” and continually asking ourselves, “Why?” certain things happen to us.
Is there an all-encompassing answer or are we destined to wander through this life without a sense of purpose?
These ideas and more are touched on in my novel Time’s Tempest. Though Taya is an alien living on another world, she goes from believing in the concrete to asking that very question… Why?
Haven’t we all at some point?
Author MJ Moores 