We live in a linear, results oriented world; the theory of cause and effect being the dominant paradigm and ideal. Do good, or pretend to be good, and good will come back to you, including wealth, health, perfect partners to fulfill your every need, a good seat in heaven, a better set of circumstances in the next lifetime, etc. You get the idea here…
Which is:
Free will reigns supreme, or should, according to the go-getters and do-gooders out there. You reap what you sow, as they say. Make the right moves, and this will CAUSE good EFFECTS to come your way: in this lifetime, the next lifetime, or on judgment day. Or suffer the effects of using your free will the wrong way, which means doing dumb things or being too weak, lazy, or narcissistic to make the right choices, thus CAUSING your downfall!
The consensus being: Our experiences are either a reward, punishment, or FATE!
Huh? FATE?
What is this fate thing about?
In the nutshell, fate is most often relegated to the inexplicable, nonsensical, absurd, or irrational: the events and situations that don’t neatly fit into the Cause and Effect paradigm, such as the tsunami that kills thousands of GOOD people, or the acquitted murderer’s memoir becoming a bestseller.
Is fate a place, space, or dimension where karma, cause and effect, and universal justice do not exist? Or is it a divine plan that we are not privy to? A divine intervention that supersedes our efforts to direct our lives through cause and effect?
Maybe fate is an intimidating word for not knowing all the causes involved in a given set of effects. They say there is a higher reason for everything, especially when we don’t know the reason, or when baffled by the senseless and illogical: whatever we cannot fathom as possible or probable, given our astute, rational intellectual abilities. When dumbfounded by mysterious effects, many default to fate as their explanation, maintaining their air of intelligence, albeit with a hint of the religious.
The typical response being something like this: “There are some things we will never know or understand, as it is God’s will, which is beyond our comprehension, and certainly beyond our current scientific theories and tools. Wait another 100 years and we will have a scientific explanation – maybe! For now, we will assign this to the fate category.”
Good enough response? Hmm, scratching my bald head.
How about the shrinks among us? You know, the psychologists, psychoanalysts, therapists, social workers, coaches, etc. What is their take on this?
THEY tell us:
Your life is this way, because of those things and people that happened or did things to you long ago. However, if you don’t remember what happened, then we will make up a plausible story for you, and then have you change the story so you feel better. Change THIS about your thinking and you will transform into THAT kind of person, and THEN have all the good things in life! Or, if you cannot afford this approach, we will prescribe you medication, so that whatever happened no longer matters: the low-cost, health insurance covered approach to canceling or reworking cause and effect. Modern psychology to the rescue! Yay! Hmm, scratching head again.
A lot of IF this, THEN that logic – the same reasoning used in computer programming. The same cause and effect that runs our software apps, permeates our individual and collective mindsets! Make the perfect moves – causes – and you will receive the socially celebrated effects. Embracing the moment has no place in this scheme. Always be BECOMING by CAUSING, but never just BE. Cause this and get that – all that wonderful stuff rammed down our throats through politics, advertising, social media, peer pressure, keeping up with the Joneses, and so on…
Cause and effect never let you rest in the moment, as you never stay in the moment, but work on causing the next desired effect or moment, or get stuck dwelling upon past moments or causes, thinking it will clarify current effects. So much work to keep skipping backwards and forwards between causes and effects. The ultimate irony being that cause and effect may be more of a mental construct than a reality – something that helps us feel more in control of our lives – so we can think or say, “I caused this and now I’m receiving the benefits or consequences of such.” As long as we can connect the good or bad effects to their causes, then the world feels less random, more meaningful, and maybe more just. But is this reality?
Reality and Meaning:
A close proximity between things, people, and events does not always prove cause and effect relationships. Our minds create this fallacy much of the time, imagining meaningful connections between the substances of our experiences, even when nonexistent.
I’m not suggesting a meaningless existence, nor the absurdity that Albert Camus believed in. What I’m suggesting is that meaning does not always arise through cause and effect, and the so called effects we witness may not always have a tangible, verifiable cause. Some things rise and fall together, and the meaning is right there, in the rising and falling, as they share a common thread or source, bringing them together at that moment and in that space. We notice the effect of their togetherness, but no cause is apparent or revealed, nothing that can be confirmed or validated. Much of life is ambiguous in this manner, like a Freudian style dream that shows us bizarre images and scenarios, leaving us to wonder about the source that created them. Some things just appear together with no apparent cause, and taking the experience at face value may be our only option. In Jungian thought, the meaning is often in the immediate experience itself, not in anything that occurs before or after the experience; the simultaneous appearance of elements and substance being a kind of synchronicity forming an experiential whole.
If you look closely enough, without the bias of cause and effect, some things appear to ONLY dance together, with no apparent connection, no recognizable cause, and no lingering effect! They meet, tango for a bit, and then go their separate ways, often leaving no trace of their one-time embrace. A kind of romantic interlude of previously disconnected essences – two ships passing in the night, so to speak, coming and going without volition, and leaving nothing behind, except the memory of their dance.
© 2020 David M. Rubin. All rights reserved.
Notes from David 