Random destinies

[Vain]

Having one of my introspective moments and contemplating just how random life really is. So my question is this: Is our inaction or our actions responsible for what happens to us in life?

I don't believe that our time is our time and we'll shuffle this mortal coil when we're destined to do so - life is too random for that.

Is a person involved in a nasty accident, that leaves them maimed for life, in that situation because of something that happened 5 years ago or 5 minutes ago? Is it because they decided not to shave in the morning or because they bought a car two years ago that had sudden mechanical failure?

To live a full life to a ripe old age is surely to mean doing everything in just the right sequence over an 80 to 90 year long period whereas people who die young just didn't get it right.

What do you think?

[Avatar]

I believe in a universe of cause and efect. So in a sense, I'd have to agree that both our action and our inaction can play a role in what happens to us.

If, by the example of the accident, you mean did it happen because the person was cruel to somebody else 5 years ago? Probably not. But it could have happened because he left 5 minutes later than usual. Hell, it could have happened because of the car he chose 5 years ago not starting first time that morning.

I think at least half of everything is the old "right time and place."

--A

[High Lord Tolkien]

What do you think?

*expletive deleted* happens.

MOD EDITED FOR CONTENT




It's true though.
I think about that every time I see one of those clips on the internet where someone is just getting some gas at a gas station and a car comes up behind them and smashes him to death.

We live our whole lives with this imaginary "invisible force field" that will keep us if we do all the right things and when *expletive deleted* happens we're usual stunned to find out that most of our lives are lived on a razor's edge of safety.

[wayfriend]

We have people dying by the thousands in earthquakes. tsunamis. by bombs strapped to peoples chests or to the undersides of cars. floods. friendly fire. wildfires. tornadoes. crashes. collapses. The odd shark.

Did they all make a mistake? If so, the only mistake I can see is being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But if you want to say that that is a mistake, then you gotta show where the clues might have been.

It doesn't matter if you believe in an afterlife or not. Our duration on this plane is governed by chance. Sometimes you don't even get past the birth canal.

[Mortice Root]

Mostly random chance.

Sure, our actions and inactions can increase or decrease the likelihood of an event happening - for example, you're much more likely to die in a plane crash if you choose to fly often. But even if you never fly you could still perish in an airplane crash - one could hit you.

An individual's choices or lack there of can certainly influence chance, but it can never completely override chance occurences.

[balon!]

Is our inaction or our actions responsible for what happens to us in life?

At any given situation where multiple choices are presented, I think it is the actions we take that determine your life. Because there are so many different paths we could have taken, and so many different lives we could have lived, it is the life we are on that determines.

And you got there with the actions you took.

[Fist and Faith]

Is a person involved in a nasty accident, that leaves them maimed for life, in that situation because of something that happened 5 years ago or 5 minutes ago? Is it because they decided not to shave in the morning or because they bought a car two years ago that had sudden mechanical failure?

Shaving would have set off a different chain of events that might not have included that particular accident. Maybe he would have left the house a couple minutes later because of the shaving. Maybe he would have cut himself, and been driving in a different mood because of it. Maybe he would have thought he looked better after shaving, and been in a different mood because of it. The possibilities are endless. Change one thing, and you might change everything else.

However, I don't believe the accident had to happen. No pre-destined stuff. We can see an event, then follow the steps back, and see how the event was arrived upon. But that doesn't mean the event had to happen, and that all of the steps had to happen in order to reach the event.

[Loredoctor]

Randomness, or chaos, is another term for a complex system of interacting variables - like the weather. I don't believe in randomness, so events happen because of preceding events.

[Vain]

seems to be two schools - or three - on this:

1. Everything is absolutely random
2. A part of what happens is cause and effect, the other part is random
3. Everything is cause and effect

I agree with Lore on this one - it's a system that's too complex for us to fathom.

However, I get to thinking that inaction is actually an action because it's a choice we make to either do something or not.

However, when it comes to people who have their choices made for them - such as children - it becomes a bit more complex

[Fist and Faith]

However, when it comes to people who have their choices made for them - such as children - it becomes a bit more complex

Still. Was the child unhappy with a choice made for him/her, and is acting out in the car?

[Avatar]

However, I get to thinking that inaction is actually an action because it's a choice we make to either do something or not.

Inaction is definitely a form of action. To the Taoist, it is a central tenet. Wu-wei is the art of knowing when to act, and when not to act.

It is described by the proverb, "When the right man does nothing, the world may shake."

My favourite example is the tale of the Discordian saint, Emperor Joshua Norton. According to the story, he once averted a riot, and possible massacre between chinese labourers and a gang of vigilantes, by stepping between the converging groups and standing there, his head bowed in silent prayer.

--A

[Vain]

So in other words, he acted and didn't do nothing?

[Avatar]

Ha, if that's how you define acting, then there may be no nothing at all. In fact, that may be the point...even doing nothing is doing something. He didn't act against them or try to stop them...he didn't do anything except stand there. Doing nothing.

--A

[Menolly]

I know moving so you stood in front of a line of tanks wasn't exactly doing nothing, but...it still seems to fit...

[Fist and Faith]

Ah! Wu-wei!
This is one of my favorite lines in the Tao Te Ching. From verse 37:

Tao abides in non-action, yet nothing is left undone.

Ray Grigg defines wu-wei this way in The Tao of Zen:

When non-doing appears as inaction it is peaceful, silent, and still; when it appears as action it is thoughtless, reflexive, and intuitive.

[Menolly]

...deja vu...

I've read that exact post of yours somewhere before, Fist.

Ah...got it.

WoE Chapter 4: The Loosing of the Shadow

As fine a point there, as here...

[Chrysalis]

I think when our time is up then thats the end of it.
An action may stall for a short while but then our fate will be altered to another ending. You have people who have very close calls with death and they change their lives to do better and make a difference thinking they have been given a chance.
I believe we all have a reason in this life. A destiny of sorts, a reason for everything that happens to us that we are not fully in control of.

Upon witnessing a guy get killed in a motorbike accident last week I realised that there is no time for 'what ifs' and 'if I live a good, honest life I will live longer' etc. Maybe he could have done something different, maybe if the road had been clear and he wasn't speeding, maybe maybe maybe...
Death finds us all and its that quick.

[rusmeister]

It really is a question of "What is the meaning of all this?"

The very fact that we ALL ask that question, that we all have that thirst for meaning, is a huge hint that meaning exists, whether we ever find it or not, just as a man dying of thirst in the Sahara would be proof, not that water does not exist, but that it does.

All of the talk of "being governed by" (the passive voice) implies a Governor, however impersonally we try to present it. One of the main purposes of the passive voice is to draw attention away from the subject of the action (the agent).

[Loredoctor]

The very fact that we ALL ask that question, that we all have that thirst for meaning, is a huge hint that meaning exists,

How does it imply that meaning exists? It seems more like a major assumption, and not that there is meaning in the universe.

[Avatar]

Agree with Lore. In that it doesn't automatically mean that it's there.

However, I do believe that life has meaning. It's meaning is to strive. That's all.

The human wish for something does not mean that there must be that thing they wish for somewhere. It only means that humans wish.

--A