Destiny Or Free Will, You Decide

I was talking to my daughter and her husband after dinner last night while Hurricane and Tornado were watching grandma, just to make sure she didn’t get into any mischief. The conversation flowed from topic to topic, taking in religion, politics, the city (mis) management, child rearing, new houses and of course how life has played out for us.

I think that we are exactly where we should be at any given point in our lives. We are truly the architects of our own destiny. I believe in fate. We are destined to be what we are and there is no way to change it. I also believe in free will, which means that in any given circumstance there may be hundreds of ways that we can react. We only choose one however, and that choice and the thousands that we make every day have brought us to this point in our lives.

I know what you are saying, “How can there be free will and destiny?” Good question! The answer lies in the way that we look at time. Time is viewed as linear but that is just so that we can measure it and quantify it. Time is actually just a human construct, and without that construct there are no limits, no boundaries, everything is now. So, even though you make a free will decision, from a different point in time it has already been made. The trick of course is to be able to step outside of time and view it at whatever point that you choose. It would be pretty cool to be able to leave one time and step into another. That is what those mystics around the world are working towards, some successfully and others, well, they are working.

I think that memories are a window to those other times in our lives. Sure it’s a dirty, smudged, foggy, distorted, cracked window with bird droppings on it, but through all of that we can and do view our past. Wouldn’t it be cool to call Molly Maid and ask if they could clean your filthy memory window? Hmmmm...maybe not. I kind of like the fog that obscures those memories. I usually come out in a much better light in my memories than I did in real life.

Sure, I met a girl at one of Ted’s wild parties, and we went out for a while which was pretty cool. In my distorted memory I was suave and sophisticated, but the reality is that she was the one that cleaned me up. You see, my party had begun around three o’clock; sitting in a circle smoking grass and hash and smoothing out my throat with a gallon of Cracklin’ Rose wine. The next thing that I knew there were what appeared to be hundreds of people milling around the house. Where did all of these people come from?

I managed to drag myself to a semi reclining position against the wall, where I could watch everyone through a drug induced haze. I’m not sure when exactly I realized that I was paralyzed from my eyes down, but it quickly became apparent that no one understood that I was crying for help using blinks and ear wiggles. I was in the midst of this panic, when I realized that not everything was paralyzed below my eyes. It seems that my stomach had put up with the Cracklin’ Rose for long enough. I managed to pull my arms in tightly to my sides just before a gallon of Rose landed on my chest and stomach.

People would wander by and say “Hi there Ken...ewwwww!” and keep wandering. This went on for about three or four eons until Bob and his girlfriend decided that I should be cleaned up. To this day I am sure that they were angels sent down from heaven to save me. Thanks again!

I was tidied up (no small feat) and sent on my way home, to end up in bed by 8:30 on a Friday night. I don’t think my parents thought that was strange. I would imagine they were happy I was a drunk and not a drug addict. Just like the Doublemint commercial, “Stop, you’re both right!”

Interestingly enough Bob spent a lifetime working for Wrigleys Gum.

Destiny or free will, you decide.