My original intention was to write something in this blog often, even daily. But it hasn't worked out like that. The exigencies, and, frankly, the distractions of life have taken my attention too often to other places than here. And this dilemma faces me in many forms almost constantly. For instance, on one hand, I feel that I should sit down and write as I am doing right now. But, in truth, I seriously wonder if I'm saying anything worth saying, and that my time might be much better spent if I were reading the "wisdom," or, at least, insights and perceptions of others. I don't know if anyone finds this blog in any way useful, but I certainly find what some people have to say to be interesting, if not useful. And I have an inherent reluctance to try to decipher my own thoughts so that you might understand what I'm talking about. I say "you" but I probably mean "me." Isn't that how we are anyway?
So there is this notion of being "torn." But there is more that I see in this dilemma; it pertains to "fate" or even "Fate." I saw a thought-provoking movie last night, called The Time-Traveler's Wife. For me it was a portrayal of the fluidity and relativity of time and space, and of how we lock ourselves in, if you will, to certain realities and very specific ways of seeing. Tied in to this line of thought, for me anyway, is the idea of Fate, or what is destined to occur. We usually view Fate as "out there" rather than "in here." In other words, it is extenal to our internal being. It happens to us and we are the recipients of Fate. I almost deifying it with the capital "F" and I don't quite want to do it like that, so take it with a grain of salt.
We see Fate much like we see Nature; as "out there." We separate ourselves from both Fate and Nature, that we view as happening to us. However, this is NOT how it is at all, in my estimation. The way I see it is that there is Fate "out there" to the extent that we are out there and not present with or within ourselves. In truth, we are a part of Fate, if you will, just as we are a part of Nature. Or Fate is a part of us just as Nature is a part of us. We cannot separate ourselves from either Fate or Nature. And I see that this is part and parcel of the argument that we have "free will" even in the midst of the power of Fate and/or Nature. I'm biting off more than I can chew or care to chew here, but now I see us in the role of Job, who is nothing compared to God, but he discovers that his recognition of the power of God, and his absolute reality of comprehension in that recognition, ties him to God and, consequently, God's power. Could this be Ahab tied on Moby Dick?
I wanted to keep it simple and then just wind it up more or less neatly, but I've failed and only confused things more. However, this is the Fate of the moment; to open it all up further and make it more and more complex. Fate is no so simple, and the problem is that we want it to all be "understandable." If it could all just "make sense," we would be happy. We would know we were "good" or that "God loves us" or even "bad" and are going to be punished. But it's not so easy or so simple as that, and, what's worse, we have to live with the often horrendous contraditions. We are contradictions to ourselves. This is what happens when you realize that at least a very small part of your fate lies in your own hands. One who claims to know told me that the Tibetan Buddhist prayer, "Om mani padme hum" translates to, "I hold the lotus in my hand." And I am the lotus as well as the hand holding it. This "fatedness" is the essence of existence. It is also reflected in Jung's notion of the "transcendent function," in which all the variables of life are included, even those not known. And so I find myself abit "torn" somewhat often. Sealing the deck of my home has been somewhat properly distracting. Perhaps life is meant to be one big overwhelming distraction...
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