Is Anything Just Fate?
How we make meaning in the space between circumstance and choice
My collaborator for this Q & A is Dr. Lily Dunn, a writer of both fiction and nonfiction with a passion for writing and mentoring literary memoir and the personal narrative and here is her question:
Dear Philippa
This might come across as more a philosophical question than something that concerns my life day to day, but I often think about it, and would love to have your take on it. It’s a question about destiny, really, as opposed to fate. The way I differentiate the two is that fate is what we are born with – our family and cultural influence, genetic predisposition, etc – and that destiny is our innate potential. We might be born with a propensity to alcoholism for instance (fate), and either give into it, or choose to divert it to helping those with alcohol problems while practicing abstinence ourselves (destiny).
If this is the case, is destiny a series of opportunities that are presented to us through a course of a life, and is it simply a matter of learning to attune ourselves to the internal voices that lead us in the right direction? Does then life become a lesson in learning which voices to listen to and which to discard? And what if some people’s destinies are not necessarily positive? That a person might meet death too young, because that was what they were landed with – or is it that they meet death too young because somewhere along the line they lost sight of what was good for them, or they didn’t feel their life was valuable enough to make the right choice?
This question first came to me when my own father was careering towards death from his alcoholism. I couldn’t work out if he was determined to follow that course because of weakness to genetic forces (there was a lot of addiction in his family), or because it was indeed his destiny to die young and catastrophically, in the reckless nature of how he had lived his life. I asked this question again, when I felt driven to leave my marriage by a force that was far greater than me, or my rationale, or better judgement. A force driving me towards a certain outcome that I seemed to have little control over, and which turned out to be the right choice.
And, again, recently, when I found out that an old boyfriend is dying, having grown increasingly solitary in recent years, and that when we were together, he had said to me that he had an image of himself getting older standing on the side of the road hitchhiking with nothing to his name, homeless and alone. What comes first, the image (which then leads to it being realised), or is the end and the journey to that end somehow pre-determined? I am also aware that this leans into the realm of ‘magical thinking’ or religious belief – although I am not religious.
Perhaps it’s simply that I find comfort in feeling there is a pattern beneath the surface that sits quietly waiting to be discovered. But that there is choice involved as to whether that pattern is discovered. We all have fear and rage and idleness, but perhaps our purpose is to do the things that help the better parts of ourselves come to the fore. I’d love to know your thoughts.
With gratitude and admiration, Lily
My Reply
Dear Lily,
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