Dictionary.com states:
–noun
1.- something that unavoidably befalls a person; fortune; lot: It is always his fate to be left behind.
2. -the universal principle or ultimate agency by which the order of things is presumably prescribed; the decreed cause of events; time: Fate decreed that they would never meet again.
We always think of fate in mythological terms. We’ve all heard the anecdotes. For example, when I first moved to New York in the last century my roommate (a former college friend) used the money I had been giving him toward the rent to secretly buy himself a car. After a huge confrontation that ended in kicking and spitting, I moved out. Shortly thereafter the block gossip led me to understand that said car had been stolen and ended up a burned out shell on the side of the Garden State Parkway. What went around came around. Now that was some cosmic retribution because I didn’t deserve to be robbed.
But that’s not what I’m speaking of. I mean real life predestination Presbyterian Style. A life path chosen before you were born. A walkway paved in such a way that no matter where you walk you will follow this Yellow Brick Road of Fate inexorably to Moirai, the Greek goddesses of Fate. It was written that even mighty Zeus, greatest of all Greek gods, was subject to their whim. And that’s exactly my question when seeking understanding of my purpose. Unlike the pristine Greek statues of perfect form, James Goetz’s 1946 line drawing of the Moirai is more
to what I think fate must be— dark, chaotic, wanton, mysterious and a little bit sinister. I mean, you have no choice in the matter if it's your destiny, right? As I wrote in Solstice at the end of the climatic battle between Solstice and Queen Vivica there was destiny afoot."Vivica did not want to die, but she had no choice. Her death was foretold on that hot summer day twenty years prior when a porcelain-skinned baby dropped onto the red dirt of South Carolina screaming and raging for attention."
When I was in the fifth grade I had a dream. I was walking down the street between my mother’s house my cousin’s who lived next door, I came upon a man whose face I don’t remember. however, it shined as bright as the sun and he made me feel safe. He was God. He looked down on me and said “Daryl, I have a mission for you.” Then, suddenly, a huge red and pus-covered arm reached out from under a hedge and grabbed me by my Spiderman belt buckle and started dragging down into the grown. Of course, I woke up screaming. It gets better. When I was in college my best friend was into esoteric mysticism and new age spiritualism. I got my astrological chart read and I found out I have a kite. Unless you’re more than a Spencer Gifts astrologist (I’m telling my age) then you, like me, wouldn’t know what that means. A kite is a “fairly rare” configuration and signifies that I have a greater purpose or mission in life. Madonna and Oprah both have kites. Oprah has a network and Madonna has “conquer[ed] the world” just like she set out to do. And here I sit at midnight disenchanted writing this blog?
Don't worry, I’m about to wrap this up. What if WE DO HAVE a path in life laid out for us by the Moirai like a cosmic GPS. But what if that path is just shadows? Or merely moving images in the dark? Or pin pricks of light on the wall? Dots on a page? Braille to the sighted. What if we don’t read the road markers correctly? What then? Will some otherworldly spirit show up and make sure we are on the divine and narrow? These are all very interested questions. But then I think there also very good answers. The choice isn’t made for us. There may be some etching in the dirt or some movement and commotion, but we don’t have to follow them. For better or worse we make up our own destinies. Of course, there are building blocks in place that make Oprah, President Obama and Madonna who they are. Such factors as education, ambition, people who believed in them, as well as faith in themselves are all such important ingredients. If we can find meaning out of the meaningless then I would say there are no coincidences. We as humans can read something special into almost anything. Omens and signs guide us. Like believing in miracles. Simply because you believe, then miracles do manifest. I believe that sometimes random acts happen without that magic elixir of caprice or premeditation. Evil is always afoot. Crap just happens sometimes. If we view these markers telling us to till the soil of our lives in a different way and it profits us, wonderful. If not, oh well. Life is long and hopefully we will learn to not regret the idea that we did not read the markers they way they were presented. I will leave you with a poem that every seventh grader knew when I was in school. It still resonates today when I contemplate my fate. Maybe it was fated that this poem has stayed with me. Invictus
By William Ernest Henley
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
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