Fate: debunked

If you can imagine a stick, you can understand fate.

But more of that later.

Think of a washing machine.  How does the water get in there?  How do the clothes get clean?  Where does the soap go?  These are all complicated questions that no one can answer.  But if you take the machine apart, break it down to its bare naked basics, and then try put it back to together, you will have a better idea of how it works.

Using chracteristics common among the populus, we can do the same thing with words that tend to have the same mysterious ambiguity as a washing machine.  Thing is, this process helps us understand them better, which in turn strips them of their mystical powers which is why I think a general dislike of doing this has naturally spread memetically throughout the populus.  There seems to be a comfort people have with willingly being ignorant about certain things and hiding it with fun little words like mysterious, secret, and purple.   Not knowing is more romantic.  I fully agree.  Which is why I have a girlfriend.

Now let's take the word Fate and strip it of its wings.

First we must point out the commonality that tags along every fateful experience throughout our organic world.  I venture to say that before most fateful experiences, there is a general state of confusion. (although I believe there could be other emotions, I choose confusion because it applys to me the best)  But I think the preceding degree of confusion is what determines the classification "fateful" of the event that follows.

This is where the stick comes in.

Picture a stick, perfectly horizontal (parallel to something......like your life). 

This stick represents our life.  In its horizontal state, it means our life is fine.  There is a balance with everything going on.  Therefore all events happening to us in that state are considered normal, desired, or expected.  There are few surprises, and the ones that do happen do not shake us in a "fateful" way.  There is a reason for this which I will explain later.

Then sometimes our life becomes unbalanced.  The reason could be of many.  You become frustrated with meeting the right guy.  Your confusion increases more and more with every new incapable guy you meet.  At some point your frustration starts consuming more of the natural emotional balance in your life.  Eating away until it's bloated weight causes your nice balanced life to tip over.

This could be translated as the stick below.

Balance has been lost due to your frustration's obesity.  Once balance is lost our natural reaction is to always regain it.  That's why cats always land on their feet, and we swing our arms.  We search for, reach for, scrape for some way to get the balance back.  We go to doctors, talk to friends, believe in a God, believe in ourselves.....believe......that the balance will come back.  We believe because it does.  Balance always comes back.  Something happens in our life that shows us the way to restore balance.  These events happen all the time, but only when our balance is off by such a degree that when our life swings back into place we feel the momentum of the swing do we call the event or series of events that triggered it "fateful".  So with a life similar to the stick pictured above, any balance restoring event will not be considered 'fateful' because the original degree of unbalance is not severe enough to allow for any movement to be felt.  To illustrate:  you are confused about what to wear for a date.  You like the guy but don't know how much, You wanna be comfortable, but also want to express that it is a special occasion.  You decide to wear skinny fit pants because they exude some level of sexy but also allow you to dance freely without showing off your muffin.  Just a normal event in a normal day.  You were confused a little bit with what kind of clothes to wear in conjunction with how you feel towards a guy and you decided on pants.  You continue on with your life without a second thought about what just transpired  Nothing fateful here.

but if the original amount of emotion is heavy enough you might have a life like the stick below.  The restoration of balance from this position will surely be felt.  Events of this magnitude are usually considered "fateful".

This can be illustrated by a continuation of our previous example.  You finally meet up with your date.  You are immediately impressed by his style.  His swoopy emo-hairstyle and depressing combination of colors are just what you like.  As the night goes on, with every conversation you discover something new you both have in common.  You both tried to commit suicide the same way.  You both hate your step-father but can't help but love your mom who you think is pathetic.  You both have fantasied about dissecting a puppy.  By the end of the night you are madly in love.  

You consider these events fateful because before you had met this man, you had set unbalance on your life by over-inflating your desire to meet the right guy with constant dreams of what kind of guy would make you happy and constant talks with you friends about all the guys in your life you currently hate/like.  Once you meet this guy, the connections you make with him causes a full life swing back into balance with such force that the only way to describe it is with the word 'fate'.

'Fate" is simply a word we use to describe something that restores balance to a life whose degree of unbalance was great enough that upon restoration, caused the momentum to be emotionally felt.