On superstition.
septiembre 25, 2009
In case you haven’t heard, your life doesn’t belong to you anymore. Just pick ten random people and ask them a few key questions, and you’ll soon find that one way or the other they’ll try to prove how the acts they play a role in and their consequences have nothing to do with their intention, choice or excercise of free will anymore. We are right back into the Middle Ages and everything we face has to do with the mysterious powers of Destiny, the Hidden Forces, the star signs, the Unknown.
It’s easier, of course. We are no longer responsible for anything, because before us lies a path that is predesigned for us and unfolds as we go on, and things are simply “meant to be”, or “everything happens for a reason”, as they like to say now.
So you go out in the street and get hit by a car, and you are taken to a hospital and you engage into conversation with this woman who is in the same waiting room and -oh, surprise!- you happen to get on like a house on fire, decide to go out for dinner the following week, fall in love, move in together, have three kids. It was meant to be. Or you are about to go on holidays but miss the flight, take a couple of trains instead, and in the second one you meet this guy you really like, see him often when you go back home, build up a friendship that lasts for years. Of course, you were meant to meet one another, not that there was any chance of meeting someone you would have liked just the same had you not missed that flight! No, there’s no chance anymore, no probabilities, let alone anything close to Science. This is just dated rubish, because what counts, what really dictates your life, is that you might be a Libra instead of a Leo, and so Libras are lazier and more disorganised and tend to miss flights far more often than the more methodical Leos. Or that woman in the waiting room was a Cancer and you are a Sagittarius, so of course you must be the perfect match. Had she been a Capricorn, forget it, it just wouldn’t work. And so everything happens for a very, very rational reason.
I’m just making this up as I go along, obviously, but I’m sure one could earn a few hundreds by just talking this shit in a properly arranged esoteric practice of some sort.
But somehow it seems to me that it only works as a justification for good things. In this new religion that has all the necessary elements except Resignation, I wonder if getting robbed, or rapped, or being diagnosed with a terminal illness, is also part of what is meant to be for each one of us, or just an error of design, or bad luck, or sheer unfairness. They are quite convenient, these new faiths, because they are open to so many interpretations, depending on the mood of each one of the followers. Handy.
As an antidote, one should be able to prescribe -and the treatment should be followed rigorously- one or two books by John Allen Paulos, who among other things says that whenever someone asks him about his star sign, he makes a new one up, only to verify that whatever answer he gives on that occasion will be followed by the inevitable “Of course you had to be!”, and the unavoidable explanation that follows. Oh, the new mystics always find their ways!
Evolution? Who talked about evolution? Welcome to the 21st Century.
septiembre 26, 2009 a las 1:05 pm
The “not meant to be” and “meant to be” phrases are often used in reference to bad luck. I see it as a way of accepting negative experiences- of choosing to view them as opportunities to learn and grow rather than choosing to play the victim or become bitter. If the words “not meant to be” are offensive, then it is basically just a matter of semantics. Surely the actual concept isn’t offensive. Though like anything, it is how far one decides to take it. If you try to absolve yourself of complete responsibility for the state of your life, you are taking it too far. But life never happens exactly as planned. Our accomplishments and defeats are always partially down to us, and partially just luck (or whatever you choose to call it). As far as referring to a loving relationship as “meant to be” – well, people are widely just madly romantic in their visions of love – so this just follows suit really. It is very difficult to lose your sense of romanticism and still find relationships fulfilling. So maybe this is a beautiful sort of faith – that which keeps you finding magic in life. Magic and belief in such things as “meant to be” can sometimes be all that keeps one going. So while that might not be completely rational, it’s still maybe positive if it keeps people from leaping off tall buildings.
septiembre 26, 2009 a las 2:08 pm
Typical Cancerian ;)
septiembre 26, 2009 a las 10:48 pm
I think the human brain is hard-wired for pattern recognition. We instinctively try to fit everything we perceive into a pattern or a story, historically for survival. We see something fall and fit it to the gravity story. We see something sharp hurtle towards us, remember the spear that hurt us last time and avoid this one etc etc.
But pattern recognition is so useful that we don’t know when to stop, so absolutely everything that happens has to be part of a pattern, and so we invent stories like fate, luck, religion, astrology, magic as catch-all patterns into which we can fit anything we like in order to be able to stop trying to figure it out. We have to. We find it impossible to conceive of any event not having a cause (despite, weirdly, being quite happy with the concept of free will).
Then of course the catch-all patterns, being far less difficult to deal with precisely because we designed them to be, start to take over from the real ones in our heads, partly because our rational minds are very little use when it comes to things like love, happiness, guilt etc
whereas ‘fate’ has no such trouble because, unlike gravity, it doesn’t have to obey any rules such as consistency. So we’re fated to think we’re fated.
The trouble is that, even if you could banish all bullshit from the way people think (and even the bullshit is bullshit, because if people truly believed in fate they would just sit in a corner and wait…), you’d still be left with the fundamental problems that reason alone can’t tackle.
Occasionally you meet someone and you feel an unusual resonance with them. You think “of all the bars in all the world, you have to walk into mine” or whatever it was Humphrey Bogart said. But you could say exactly the same about the person at the next table who you never even speak to, or the receptionist in the hospital waiting room. The magic is in the resonance, surely, not the fate..
Having said all that, I myself have the honour to be the bringer of all weather. You better believe it.
Z, S of C
septiembre 28, 2009 a las 12:52 pm
That, in itself, is a romantic way of perceiving things, and romanticism is good as long as it doesn’t keep us from accepting reality I guess. There are so many ways that from my point of view are wrong, and the fact that they might keep people feeling alive or happy doesn’t make them any better, or doesn’t excuse them. It’s a slightly dangerous line of argument in the sense that, as it happens with cultural relativism for instance, it excuses things as far as you might want to go, and it dillutes what people say and what people do from all precision.
And this happens with words too. The root of many debates is really just semantic and not a question of two or more people having entirely opposed views, but only different means of expressing them. But words are important and they should serve their purpose and be used far more seriously, because they do carry a lot of weight and act upon people’s consciences, and they also shape the way we think and perceive the world.
I see nothing wrong with what you call “magic”, as long as it’s not converted into some kind of blind faith. But then this magic, or this bliss, can also be found by very rational individuals who choose not to kid themselves about the “energies” of life. The finding of it is surely much more difficult but sharper, more unique, more intense if you like when it happens. Is it worth the grief? I’d say it is.
septiembre 28, 2009 a las 1:30 pm
Oh, I believe it bien sûr!
I didn’t mean to sound like someone who hoists the flag of rationality and makes of it the solution to all our problems. On the contrary, people who do so often appear to me as being purely irrational, precisely out of a forced rational denial of irrationality, if that makes sense. I’m quite happy to embrace the fact that reason can’t tackle most of our inner needs and desires- I welcome that, as a matter of fact, otherwise life would be too boring.
G.
septiembre 28, 2009 a las 1:31 pm
Indeed.
septiembre 29, 2009 a las 11:04 am
Oh! but… who need an antidote?
septiembre 29, 2009 a las 1:47 pm
Mankind does, for the sake of its salvation.
septiembre 30, 2009 a las 8:54 pm
So… that’s me! Thanks for the warning.
octubre 2, 2009 a las 8:21 pm
No No Gara you’ve got it all wrong about the fate thing – you obviously haven’t read this:-
http://www.amazon.com/Meant-Be-Miraculous-Stories-Lifetime/dp/157324161X
XDDD
octubre 4, 2009 a las 1:01 pm
Oh, I have, many times. It’s the kind of reading I pile up on my bedside table, you know. It nurtures my romantic soul and it’s just so well written.
octubre 4, 2009 a las 3:29 pm
Agreed Phoebe, the concept isn’t offensive and it is really just a case of semantics and how we wish to interpret people’s understanding of meant to be. It would be taking things wildly too far to suggest all we intend, or will, actually happens because we want it to, or because it was our choice in the matter in the grand scale of life.
If things weren’t meant to be, they would happen a different way. But they don’t because they can’t, because things can only happen in one way, the way in which the universe, space and time is, if you like, unfolding. But that does not have to mean that these things happen due to a supernatural force, or some explained theory. And this is where the problem lies for me.
But as Einstein perfectly puts; the most incomprehensible thing about the universe, is that it is comprehensible. And for the majority over history, that isn’t good enough. We want and need to know why, to be able to feel safe. So we make up these reasons or religions based on vague superstitious ideas, where anyone can fit in a story. It’s simple, but unconvincing to a small minority of us.
And here Gara, is where I share your cynicism and disdain. However, I do feel, one has to accept along the line, that most people cannot live with this uncertainty, this unknowingness. It takes a great deal of emotional and intellectual maturity to live and accept the unknown, especially when it comes to love and romance, where most, if not all, ‘so called’ rational minds are overcome by complete madness.
Yes Zeus, it is quite weird how people contradictorily accept the concept of free will. And yes, Meant to be: Miraculous stories would be something I could wipe my arse with, but I find loo roll far softer, cheaper and I can buy it from my local shop!
So Gara, let’s drink to letting go of reason at times, to this ‘magic’, and to the grief it may bring, which is of course, worth it!
Oh, and I’m a Virgo!
octubre 5, 2009 a las 9:20 pm
Perhaps this stuff about fate is just the ineradicable background psychological buzz you’re left with in the absence of faith in an organised religion (that’s not to say religious people don’t have it too). Maybe it’s too fundamental to be ditched without an intellectual effort each time. We seem to be quite happy to believe in fate without being that bothered about who’s dishing it out or why, so in that sense we are perfectly able to live with unknowingness, just as we are with gravity (and still NOBODY knows what gravity is, only what it does). So on that view religion would just be a temporary attempt to put a name to the fate, if you’ll pardon the pun.
You can tell people as much as you like that the numbers 1,2,3,4,5,6 are just as likely to win you the lottery as any random sequence of numbers, and you can even get them to accept it intellectually, but feeling that to be true is another matter. One’s instinct screams against such a tempting of fate.
Also I still try not to step on the cracks in the pavement.
Einstein’s quote is ironic, considering he never accepted the quantum interpretation of physics and yet he knew that his relativity theories only explained things on a macro scale. I bet that quote was from before the atom bombs went off. I doubt you’d get many physicists now to say that the world is comprehensible..
I like the Groucho Marx one on the subject:
‘A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere’
Finally, if we have superstitions to make ourselves feel safe, why do we invent such bloody dangerous ones? And why is it that the superstitious explanations are so much less simple and comprehensible than the real ones?
I’m a virgo too BTW. Hey Gara, if you’re also a virgo, that must be why we are all so scept…Oh.