Fate

“He that is born to be hanged shall never be drowned”

-French Proverb

Each human shares two experiences, birth and death.  Everyone lives, and everyone dies, it’s the general concept of life.  In all honesty, these two factors are what bring mankind together.  It is human nature for humans to gather and celebrate at births, and mourn over deaths.  But the major question of this month’s blog is how is it decided when its time to bid goodbyes or say hellos?  Does mankind determine his/her own destiny through choice, or is fate out of mankind’s control?  There are two concepts of fate.  There are those that believe fate is the development of events that occur outside of a person’s control, almost as if it was predetermined, and there are others that believe fate is determined through a person’s actions or choices.

Throughout the drama Oedipus, Oedipus is a dignified King of the land called Thebes after killing a sphinx.  Although a great plague has come over the kingdom and the only way to relieve the plague curse, Oedipus must find and reveal the person in which is responsible for the former king’s death. According to the oracle, Oedipus was born into a predetermined fate, a fate in which the God’s planned.  His birth was a sin itself, with it came fate.  He was born to become the man in which killed his father, and married his own mother, as well as sleep in the same bed.  Could Oedipus change his own fate, or is fate unchangeable?  In the play, Oedipus’ parents take actions to avoid the oracle.  They originally gave their son to a messenger and ordered for the child to be killed or taken somewhere in which the son would never return.  This action was taken in avoidance to the oracle.  But the question is was the action indeed already predetermined by a supernatural power, or was it the choice itself that led the king and queen to their eventual shame? 

In today’s society, there are so many scenarios in which one can question who is in control of the fates.  It is human nature to think about it.  I find myself question events that occur.  The most I catch myself pondering the topic is the place in which I feel most vulnerable, my car.  I find that the places in which you think about fate the most are the places in which you fear the most.  It’s not the fact that I am scared of driving, it’s the fact of how vulnerable I feel when I am driving, the fact that you aren’t in total control.  Yes, you choose where you are driving.  Yes, you have the choice of how fast you go, and when or when not to stop.  But there are so many other variables that are out of your control.  You can control your vehicle, but it is up to other drivers to control theirs.  This concept is what makes every mother cringe when it is that age in which their children become exposed to this vulnerability.  It’s one of the first moments in which mothers can’t protect their child from variables outside of anyone’s control. 

Freak accidents happen everyday.  Everyone has been stuck in traffic at one point because of an accident, whether it is small or big. It is human nature to pass an accident and say wow that could’ve been me.  We always consider think what if… what if I didn’t spill my coffee on my trousers and have to go change real quick, would that be me?  What if that crazy man pulled out right in front of me, and then drove ten miles per hour, could that be me? What if… What if… What if… 

I personally believe that everyone has a predetermined fate in the end, but your choices can have a toll on your fate as well.  From my personal driving experiences, ever since I began driving my mother has always told me to “Watch out for animals, especially deer, other drivers, and trees.”  I would always laugh when she said trees because you just don’t hear about people having a tree fall on their car while they are driving.  Of course the one day it happened to me as I was driving home from work.  A huge branch fell right on my windshield, thankfully only damaging my windshield wipers.  This incident in particular made me question fate.  What is so funny about this memory to me is I specifically remember debating before I left my work parking lot which way I would take home.  If I would’ve taken the other way would the branch still have fallen on me?  When I look back at it now I really don’t think I could avoid having a branch fall on my windshield.  I believe that everything happens for a reason.  If the branch didn’t actually hit my windshield, I would’ve never taken my mother’s saying seriously.  I believe that as humans we can determine the outcome of small battles that mankind has created.  We only have a choice of our fate in society, not in the overall picture.  It is kind of weird if you think about how connected you can be with total strangers.  How you can affect a stranger’s life without even knowing them.  Just think of how many people you have served at a job that you don’t know.  It is such a small world.  Fate is interchangeable.  Fate is a vulnerability in which everyone ponders, and thinks about unconsciously.

The Realism of Fear - How Our Society's Actions Are Based Around It

As I am sitting here debating what to discuss in my first blog I have come to the realization that I have made life so much easier by typing out my thoughts as oppose to leaving them all jumbled up in my brain.  It is amazing how my thoughts seem so much more logical on paper.  It is so much easier to create a blog that has meaning behind it by not actually having a plan but instead following your emotions.  For days now I have been trying to connect the different literatures in class to news stories that I have found on the Internet.  Let me tell you, I have had the most difficult time trying to create a blog this method.  I found an article on CNN titled “Thai School’s Nazi-themed Parade Sparks Outrage” and I thought it was perfect to connect with the novel, The Power of One, because Judge, Peekay’s nemesis, is into Hitler and the Nazi Party and I wanted to further exemplify how the novel exemplifies the drawbacks of racism in society.  My only flaw in this blogging tactic is that I can’t necessarily make a personal connection with an event in which I haven’t witnessed nor had any part in.  So I was thinking about it some more and finally decided to just start typing and something will come to mind.  So excuse me for my rambling thoughts in the introduction paragraph. These rambling thoughts will turn into something that my followers can read and ponder about, I promise.

I was sitting in psychology class the other day and we were discussing the different types of psychologists within the psychology field.  One specific type of psychologist is a social psychologist in which an individual studies how people behave in social situations or group dynamics.  For example, if there was a mass text that was sent out about a Flash Mob gathering at twelve o’ clock and you’re the only one that shows up would you still start dancing? Most people wouldn’t just start break dancing in the middle of the street without a group of people doing it with them because it’s human nature to worry about what others think of you.  History proves this.  For instance, the My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War was an instance in which American Soldiers mass murdered 300 unarmed civilians in South Vietnam, most of which being woman and children.  First the soldiers raped the women, and then killed them using various cruel and unusual punishments.  Yes, American Soldiers did this.  It is hard to believe that “our boys” would fulfill such a sinful crime, but it happened.  If you pulled each American Soldier aside from the group and looked at them individually you would never in your rightful mind think that they would commit such a monstrous act.  But, when you put a bunch of individuals together in a war verse an unidentifiable enemy there builds tension and fear.  When fear becomes a factor within a group the individual’s sense of morals are lost.  It is proven that most people wouldn’t do certain things without others surrounding them doing the same thing.  Crowds overwhelm the individual and the individual unconsciously perform tasks that they wouldn’t normally do, nor ever dream of doing.  Fear conquers the individual’s sense of morals which is the reason why our society has been the way it has been for centuries.  History proves this.  Men use to be considered more dominant then women through the use of physical fear because men are genetically programmed to be stronger than women.   Back in times of slavery, Caucasians enslaved African Americans because of their skin color, because they feared divergence.  Because they feared divergence, or a difference, it was and still is human nature to dominate that fear by conquering the difference by being in power.  With fear there is a need for power, with power there is recklessness, and with recklessness there is violence.  Look at what Adolf Hitler did throughout the nineteen-forties.  He feared the Jewish people because of their different standards, their different religion.  His fear created a need for power to conquer.  He did this first by labeling the fear, in this case with bright yellow star patches, and then by herding the fear into concentration camps.  It is like a herd of sheep, they are easier to control all herded up within a fence line.  The human mind is only at peace with fear until they box it off into one section, it cannot be surrounding them.  If you do this then you are in power.  Once in power it is human nature to resort to recklessness.  Now that you have your fear sectioned off you just have the urge to destroy it, to crush it.  Adolf Hitler had the Jews sectioned off in concentration camps so he crushed his fear by mass murdering as many Jewish civilians as possible through a numerous of cruel methods.  Recklessness goes thus far because the initiator creates fear in others surrounding him.  This initiates wars, hate groups, and cultural tensions.

The same applies to the novel The Power of One in many different aspects.  In the beginning of the story, The Judge tried to conquer his fear of being an unnoticed figure in the boarding school because of his lack of scholarly intellect and the fear of being conquered by a “Rooinek”, a figure of different skin tone.  In order to conquer his fear he performed tasks similar to Adolf Hitler’s.  He labeled his fear, in this case by creating a new name for his victim who became known as “Pisskop”.  He herded his fear by surrounding his fear with his gang of eleven-year olds.  He then became reckless by bullying his fear in unusual ways and by killing his only inspiration, Granpa Chook.  The Judge made others fearful of the “Rooinek” by bringing up the history of rivalry between the English and the African Americans.  The same scenario occurred throughout the world in the form of racism, especially in adult figures.  For instance when Peekay and Morrie attempted to start a night schooling program for the adult African American figures that never had an opportunity to have the educational opportunities as Morrie and Peekay did the police shut the program down.  The police at the time were Caucasians ignorant of their fear of divergence.  They felt threatened when news spread that African Americans were being offered education that could catapult them to the same power level as the Caucasians.

These issues are still present in today’s society.  Everyone has experienced this fear routine, it is human nature.  As a child I know I always feared the Boogey Man that supposedly lived in my closet.  First, I labeled that fear by putting flashlights in my closet.  Next I herded the fear into one general area by closing my closet doors at night.  I obtained that fear but on those nights in which the house would creak from the rustling wind I was on edge until I became reckless.  I became reckless by swinging open my closet doors with my handy plastic spatula in hand (my form of weapon at the time) to destroy that fear.  But because there was nothing there for me to destroy I would resort to crying and sleeping in my parents’ bed as a way to reconcile my fear.  It’s a process in which happens all the time.  Even with the example I gave of the article I found about the parade in which Children dressed like Nazis in Thailand, the same fear theory applies.  By dressing like the Nazis society became fearful of little kids in a parade.  Would society normally fear little kids dressed up in a little school parade? No, not normally, but because of what the costumes represented people became fearful so they identified the fear by showing fury, and they herded the fear by creating a news article about their fury in order to create a group in which will help the individual fear be conquered.  Verbal recklessness occurred in which the school that allowed this parade to occur became verbally attacked by society.  Society gained power over the school and the school had no choice but to surrender and apologize for their misdemeanor.  The outraged society won power.  History proves this time and time again, and will continue to prove the scenario.  It is human nature, nature in which I believe we just have to learn to accept because unfortunately it will haunt us throughout time.