Destiny?

I tried to define destiny today. I was running up and down the stadium stairs, and I was rather wary when I looked over the edge to see the ground so far away. This was when I was at the very top, mind you. I'm not too fond of heights, especially when stairs seem to play a trick on my mind. It's almost as if every step up is a potential fatal fall downward, no matter how close to the ground I may be. So cautious am I. Thank goodness I couldn't see the ground below me. So, the metal railing seemed to be too low, and the sky way too close and raw for my liking. However, it did drop an interesting question into my head while my head was out and open from sweating away all of my unused worries.

If I were standing on the highest point in the world (imagine building the world's highest tower atop Mount Everest), and I had no intention of jumping, could Fate itself be so powerful as to bring me down to the ground.

I believe in Fate, if you haven't realized. I've never doubted it, yet I seem to arm wrestle with it every day in its existence. Perhaps that's exactly why I believe it. I play my cards against myself every day. Most days it's on my side. I'm called "lucky". It's irrational, but yet in my mind the very existence of such a concept seems rational. After all, why is it that I seem to be possessed with "luck", when there is no such thing unless it is tied with an entity such as "Fate"? I digress.

So if I'm not quite suicidal or emotionally at peril, could Fate hypothetically compel me so much as to make me jump or fall off of that high point? In such an isolated place, in which there would be no one to push me and no bad disasters or bad weather to stray me from solid existence, could the power of Fate be tested? There, are we in charge of our own destinies, or is Fate able to prove itself in such an instance?

I guess I should try answering some of these questions, since I had reason to raise them. I genuinely believe that they have value, even if it may seem like fluff. It would be so nice if I could create my own definition of Fate. Perhaps then I will understand life, and how life is to be led in correspondence to such an open concept. I think that Fate can only be proved in a vacuum, just like all principles of physics begin in a vacuum state and work best in such a state. If Fate as a concept truly has value, then it must show itself in the physical sense. This means that luck and mercy are not enough to explain the existence of such a huge web of time and heart.

I can see how human weakness could be the thing compelling me more than Fate, because I might get to feel so hopeless and reckless as to jump because there's no other way down. It seems a lot more likely than Fate itself doing the job, doesn't it? Even the most fervent fatalist would doubt the credibility of his or her philosophy in such an instance. Yet, I know that it cannot possibly be so concrete. Strangely, this paradoxical dominance of humans in our small spectrum of time is pessimistic. It shows exactly how weak we are. Those who believe in higher powers will agree that there will be other reasons to stay strong in such a sad position. Keep this in mind, as this is only part of the paradox.

Fate can bring me down. Fate in itself, I mean. How does it do this? There is no Invisible Hand, after all, as there is in uninterfered economic process. Fate outside of human emotions cannot have greed, or a need for fairness, or a need for revenge. It simply is. Perhaps that is what makes it so fascinating to me. Well, Fate is powerful in that it eggs on outside forces that are beyond individual control. It may bring in awe (in the most basic way), as one is suddenly caught by the details of one's surroundings to a manner that only the most hard-hearted humans can resist. It may bring in the absurdity in such a devised realism, as one would never have managed to climb so high if one did not have a way down (it is only logical, in terms of architecture, unless the builders took out the stairs). Of course, devising any alternate scenarios would be even more unrealistic, as I tried to simulate a vacuum.

Now, for the other end of the paradox in the former hypothesis. There must be a positive side to the idea that we are in charge of our own lives. As you can see, I'm hardly a philosopher. Fate in itself is a power that disguises itself, in conclusion. It comes in the form of outside interferences (emotions, people, and others fairly independent of our own internal processes, which cannot become any more specific), because it has no physical being. How else could it interfere, in that isolated situation? It cannot exist without human touches, so to speak. Even a hermit would not be drawn to fall by Fate alone. It would be processes in his mind as he reflected on his loneliness.

What can Fate do? Something that it can do to all of us. It may bring death, as one may very well not come down (refering to my tower on the mountain situation), but let natural processes take over. Yet, the fact that such an end can be prevented shows what power we do have.

There is Fate, if that comforts us. It is our logic, and our reasoning, and the odds that we create for ourselves. There is the optimism, within reason, of course. That was what my mind was getting at. It's strange how my creativity is generally dark nowadays, and yet my Freudian slips show that I actually embrace light. I could very well have turned this stream into a river of fire and frustration, but I did not. Would that count as bringing this sort of optimism into reality as a justified way to see things? I hope so.