Fate

 

                Walking through the falling, autumn leaves, beneath a cold, heavy sky, my eyes wander from tree stump to fallen log to foliage drifting down to the ground, and I wonder. The wind picks up, gusting through the forest, scattering the needles in new directions. In movements unchosen. Towards outcomes unforeseen. But each branch would always fall in the same spot, each fern would shiver in the same way, each particle of smoke, each human striding along their path.

                The frond of Oedipus knew that the wind would carry him to, in his own words, “…lie with my own mother, breed children from whom all men would turn their eyes; and that I should be my father’s murderer.” The Oracle foretold it and thus it must be. His efforts went in opposition to such a fate. He tried to force himself to avoid it, leaving his family, not knowing that he was adopted, and yet his fortune foretold still came to pass. His yellow maple leaf hit the ground exactly as predicted. But that only applies to him, a character in  a story with a preplanned plot. Sophocles designed him in the form of Aristotle’s tragic hero, “…the man who on the one hand is not preeminent in virtue and justice, and yet on the other hand does not fall into misfortune through vice or depravity , but falls because of some mistake…” not leaving much to chance with the god as an author with a plot.

                Two branches intertwine in the molting canopy high above me. Broken off from their mother trees, they sit amongst their brethren, vulnerable. I watch them quiver as a breeze washes through the woodlands. Hand in hand they cling, trembling in their shoes, but, together, they do not fall.

It all comes back to the interactions between each and every piece of matter. Just think about it. If everything was to start in the same way, to have the same circumstances, as everything did in the atomic beginning, the Big Bang, then every single action would occur in the same manner as it has already done. Not through any specific fate but through the reactions of chemicals, the impacts of particles, the behavior of atoms.

“Sure there was a big bang, and the universe now seems to be 'destined' to expand forever while all the stars burn out or explode…” -David Zeigler, “The Science of Destiny; what is the meaning of life, anyway?”

            Peering at the universe through this lens, there is only one reality. And the future is knowable, if everything in the universe is known, but it is not. It cannot be. There is too much in the infinity of space, in the infinitesimalness of atoms to be possibly comprehended. Thus, everyone has a fate, everyone has somewhere they are going, but such a destination is unfindable and such a fate is unknowable.

                Throughout Great Expectations, Pip, an average lad, finds himself romantically drifting towards Estella, a cold unreachable girl raised by a mad woman in a dilapidated mansion. Such a story would seem to be a classic story in which they are fated to fall in love and live happily ever after, him saving her, she elevating him. But, throwing out all these predestined expectations, Estella clearly doesn’t fit that mold and definitely doesn’t let them just fall into each other’s arms.

 “…she called me ‘boy’ so often and, with a carelessness that was far from complimentary." -Pip, Great Expectations

                It defies what reader’s may assume is their destiny, their purpose for being created. And this is an important lesson. For life is not really predetermined in front of us, it is our decisions now that make our future. Though Estella and Pip did not follow the traditional path to happiness that they were set upon, his tenacity in caring for her led to him impacting her life anyways. He walked his own path. She walked hers. We are not set cast into specific roles. Instead we pin such roles to ourselves with the choices we make now, impacting our lives forever.

                As the grey sky fades into an enshrouded night and the murmur of nocturnal creatures begins in the woods, I continue to crunch through the leaves on my path, dodging the occasional tree, hurdling the occasional fallen log. As I walk forward, a field eventually opens up in front of me, tall with goldenrod and bluegrass echoing with the wind. The gloom of evening shades the far reaches of the meadow, hiding them from my eyes.  Entering, I decide to sit down and relax, take in my surroundings. Lying back, I gaze up at the sky. A cloudy moon is vaguely apparent, but the stars aren’t visible through the fogginess of the overcast heavens. In my mind, though, I can still picture what lies beyond my airy veil.

                And it’s beautiful.

                I get up and continue to walk into the night.