Adulterated Passion

This is a very interesting question!  It deserves a long answer.

I am agnostic.  For those of you who don’t know what this means, I’ll summarize it in the most basic way: I do not believe specifically in anything, but I believe it is possible that religion and spirituality are valid, correct, or partially correct.  I think there are too many beliefs out there to pick one, and the likelihood that any one of them is correct is so miniscule.  But like the lottery, it can happen.

I used to believe in the concept of destiny, but I no longer do.  My idea of it always meant that every single person’s path is already set, and that eventually became too silly of an idea for me.  My own thought processes became so complex I felt insulted by the suggestion that some omnipotence decided everything for me and that my thoughts, emotions, doubts, and desires are all part of the same domino chain.

So here’s what I do believe in: the freewill to accept fate.  What do I mean by this?  Hopefully I can explain properly:

It is fated that we will all die.  But by freewill, our decisions effect when, where, and how that will happen.  Not always our freewill, but someone’s.  

It is fated that the sun will explode and consume our planet in however many millions or billions of years.  It is our collective freewill that will determine whether our planet remains habitable until that time comes. 

I cite Aragorn, son of Arathorn: 

“A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day.  An hour of wolves and shattered shields, when the age of men comes crashing down, but it is not this day. This day we fight.  By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you stand, Men of the West.”

I believe there are certain inevitabilities in this universe we were fated to live in.  There are things in and out of our control, and while that may sound like the most fundamental tenet of our existence, I feel it is a concept lost on many people.  This belief has led me to the strength that keeps me working, positive, and loving the moments I spend alive.  This same belief can, at time, be depressing or pessimistic.  Knowing that we control some of our fate – and still disrespect our planet, oppress races and genders and sexualities and religions, murder for fossil fuels and convince each other that everything is a god damn conspiracy – saddens me because of what we do with that control.

But in the end, I remain positive.  Because a secondary belief goes along with it: life is a pendulum between fate and freewill.  It will swing fate’s way, and something bad will happen.  It will swing freewill’s way and be corrected.  Then it will go back to fate and something wonderful will come our way.  But then it will come back in our hands and we will squander it.

When the pendulum swings again, I believe fate will take us back to a better place.