Friday, December 13, 2024

According to Fate - Nov 20 2024

 

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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