According to Fate
Nov 20 2024
We look back
and see history unfolding
as if determined by fate,
a series of notable dates
joined by an unbroken ine
to the distant past.
After all
doesn’t it feel preordained
that you and me are here and now;
so perfectly natural
there must have been a master plan
that led to us.
We also look back
and understand history
through a present day lens;
the tempting sin
of the solipsistic now,
peering smugly down
from the moral high ground
with unsparing judgement.
Denying
our common humanity;
how, if we had lived back then
we would have behaved as badly
yet been just as sure of ourselves.
And look ahead
imagining it only gets better.
Pre-destiny, once again;
as if we’ve survived so far,
and so, by the grace of God
always will.
Muddling through, somehow;
eternally blessed
despite a misstep or two.
But what about accident, contingency
and the “great man” theory
of hinge events?
Or, for that matter, of the lesser men
and their venal hangers-on,
who claw their way to power
like crabs in a barrel
clambering to the top?
Of all the forks in the road
we took right instead of left,
and of all the narrow bottlenecks
a few random souls
somehow squeezed through.
And what if people back then
really were different than us?
Their culture, values, worldview
disturbingly foreign,
as disorienting
as a new exotic land
to a jet-lagged traveller
stepping off the plane
into tropical heat and blinding sun.
And why couldn’t the future
just as well be worse?
The end of history
because when life is nasty, brutish, and short
how much energy will be left
to spend on remembering?
And even if times are good
it will be the end of history,
because everyone's version is different
yet clung to just as fiercely;
a billion narratives
and none of them true.
Or worse,
we’ll have finally succeeded
in killing ourselves off;
the literal end,
when all our great works
will have turned to dust,
and because heaven and hell
are the wishful thinking
of believers in justice,
all the bad people
who lived with impunity
will still get off scot free.
We totter
on the head of a pin
the edge of a precipice,
perhaps a mere blip
in the life of the planet
the history of the universe.
It may not have been the grace of God
that got us to the now
here on planet earth,
but looking back
it’s still miraculous
we ever made it this far.
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