[lit-ideas] Re: The Final Finger of Fate
- From: "Stan Spiegel" <writeforu2@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2006 20:14:24 -0400
Mike, you called this thread "the final finger of fate." Wasn't it "the fickle
finger of fate" that originated in "Laugh-in" back in our youth?
Stan Spiegel, Portland
----- Original Message -----
From: Mike Geary
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Thursday, September 14, 2006 4:20 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] The Final Finger of Fate
I have a dear friend who teaches at Dawson College in Montreal. Yesterday,
after the shootings there, she sent out an email to her friends advising that
she was fine . I got the email before I saw the news about the shootings. I'm
glad I did. Nonetheless the shootings struck me as very close to home just by
virtue of knowing someone who could well have been a victim. It also struck me
as especially evil when any life is willfully destroyed for reasons that seem
to be nothing more than a kind of pleasure. What a horrendous waste. But what
of the vein that bursts in the brain, the sudden imbalance of electrolytes, the
gas leak, the drunk driver? Are those deaths not a horrendous waste as well?
Yes, but those events weren't brought about by willful intent, they were
fateful events. There's a meaningful qualification there. Is there?
There's not only the whole question about the mental state of the shooter -- my
first assumption in these cases is that of severe derangement -- but even if he
was acting willfully, the fact that anyone was where they were at that time was
fate. In fact, everything's fate, isn't it? We might truly make reasoned
decisions in our lives, but the world surrounding those decisions are not ours
-- they are the world we just find ourselves in and of which we have extremely
little knowledge and practically no control over. We live in darkness and
every step we take is potentially over a precipice.
I don't know whether I find those thoughts comforting or distressing. The
idea that life has some meaning outside myself can be very distressing. The
thought that I have some purpose in being here and that it's up to me to
fulfill that purpose is dreadful. Holy Mother the Church has certainly gotten
a lot of traction off that idea. I understand, contrary to my own rejection of
the notion that ultimately there is some purpose and meaning to our existence,
that that notion can be comforting and itself bring meaning and purpose. Most
human beings seem to assume that to be the case and hitch their psychological
and philosophical wagons to it. But the randomness of death won't let me seek
solace in such hopes. Each moment we live is a gift (or a curse as the case
may be) of fate and nothing else. These are ancient thoughts, I know, I know.
But they spring all new in your face with each such event as Charles Whitman's
killing of 14 at the University of Texas Tower or Klebold and Harris, the
Columbine boys,killing 15, or Patrick Purdy's killing of 6 at the Stockton, CA
school, or Gang Lu's killing of 5 at the University of Iowa, or Luke Woodham's
killing of 2 at Pearl, MS high school, or Michael Carneal's killing of 3 at the
Paducah, KY school, or Kip Kinkel's killing of 2 at Thurston High School in
Oregon, or Mitchell Golden's and Andrew Johnson's -- 11 and 13 year old boys
-- killing of 5 in Jonesboro, Arkansas, or Jeffery Weisse's killing 10 at Red
Lake High School in Minnesota. All of these killers were surely insane, but
just as insane is the society that put guns in their hands. It's all just
fate.
Mike Geary
Memphis
Other related posts:
