Fatalism (or, Swimming Against the Current)

As a child I ran across a Twilight Zone comic book. Among the stories was the tale of a man who was informed by a fortune teller that he would die on a certain date - we’ll say it was August 15^th. Obviously traumatized, he wracked his brain to figure out a way to escape his destiny. Finally it hit him - he would charter a small aircraft, have it fly to the International Date Line, and fly right on the line (where it would be the 14^th on one side, and the 16^th on the other) for 24 hours, thereby cheating fate. As the journey neared it’s end, the man heard a thump from the front of the plane and went to investigate. The sound he heard was that of the plane being re-fueled, but in moving from the center of the plane he “crossed the line” onto the fateful day. You can guess how the story ends.

Technical inaccuracies aside (the International Date Line separates two calendar dates, not three), it was my first lesson in fatalism. Defined as a doctrine that all events are predetermined, that we really have no control over our destinies, I’d guess that most people don’t really believe in it. Or, say they don’t.

In observing those around us, however, you’d think some of us embrace the doctrine whole-heartedly. Take Nadine, for example. Her father left when she was a young child, and her Mother sank into a deep, alcohol-fueled depression. Nadine was left to envision a world where families stay together and love and harmony abounds, and vowed she would one day live in such a world. Fast-forward twenty years. Nadine, married at 19, sees her world slipping over the precipice, into the void of her youth. With a young child of her own, her marriage is crumbling and the future looks bleak. In spite of all efforts to the contrary, her fate is about to come full circle to that place she thought she’d left forever.

Or consider the case of Van, an over-achiever and honor roll student who became a VP at a prestigious marketing firm. With a very comfortable life, replete with family and friends and scads of money in the bank, Van was miserable. Throughout high school and college, his plan was to work his behind off until he could afford to retire, then spend his days surfing and his evenings hanging out at beachside calypso bars. But again, fate intervened. Van found that there was always another goal to attain, another check to write, another rung of the ladder to climb. Alas, Van has come to the sobering conclusion that he’ll never escape the prison he himself built, and resigns himself to his fate.

Could it be that fate is like a black hole, constantly drawing us in, but at an imperceptibly slow rate? A gravitational force perpetually pulling us away from our goals and dreams? Are we all just swimming against the current of some invisible energy form - some immutable karma?

Or, do we subconsciously sabotage our own best laid plans? Did Nadine see something in the darkness of her youth that was strangely inviting, even comforting? Did Van feel guilty, deeply ashamed for wanting what some would view as a frivolous, irresponsible existence? Are we all destined to fall prey to some strangely twisted, unspoken, self-fulfilling prophecy?

Like the airplane in the story, many of us crash and burn when we seem to hold so much promise. Those left to mourn us stand off to the side, wringing their hands, wondering what went wrong as we sleepwalk through our lives, numb with misery, and eventually self-destruct.

“It’s fate”, we say, as we resume our swim against that current.