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Michael considered fate at 15:00   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment

It's the end of an era here in the port city and even though the sun is shining so bright and the breeze is just right and there is no more work.. unfortunately, there is still fight. I got a lot of fight in me yet, what with the packing and moving and unpacking and all the unholy crap I have to deal with here in the last week of my stay here in the u.s. of a. You'd think I'd be happy to be off of work sitting in the sun like I am here, not a cloud for as far as my little eyes can see, but I'm procrastinating. Been procrastinating about this blog and I've been wondering what's going to happen to this little corner of the internet what with my routine and schedule about to be flippity-flopped 180 degrees. Been thinking it might not keep on keeping on like it has for over three years now despite the lulls, the dry commentary, the lack of hits, the general disinterest.. cause in the end it hasn't been me who has been uninterested. Honestly, it's quite impressive to me that I even found this place habitable for this long - usually I get tired of my digs and feel the need to clean or cut or just generally run away. I guess switching the template is sorta like that, but still - it's the same place. I'm still here.

The end is nigh now and I can see it clearly. It's no longer a far off destination, it's right here close up in my view. It's four days away. Thing is, it's so close now that it's literally quite unavoidable. Before, months ago when it first became a decision it wasn't really real yet. It was still kind of fresh and fun and just a whisper on the wind, sort of a suggestion, a thought, an idea. Ideas are great because they're untouchable, unmeasurable.. they float there unseen only felt, like a good massage, they aren't intrusive. This end, four days away now, this is intrusive. My whole life is about to be tipped upside down like a kid on the playground. All my change is about to be stolen. It's not the end of the world but it's the end of an era and I don't know exactly how I feel about that.

Had this notion a long long time ago - so long ago I can't even really remember - that in this life you are truly alone. No matter how many friends and relatives you surround yourself with you're still alone. This isn't an original idea or a particularly exciting one but it's something I'm painfully aware of lately.. it's been flushed out these last few weeks as a sort of reaction to the changes that are about to take place in my life. A move from one city to another. A move from one country to another. A move from one employement status to another, one student status to another. And no one, no one at all, making the journey with me.

Don't get me wrong. There are folks on both ends. Old friends, new friends, good friends. People excited about my return to Montreal. People sad to see me leave the port city. But in the journeys, the real learning experiences, there is no one. It's an empty road from here to Montreal. Empty of the chatter of good times. Empty of the fun. No fun whatsoever.

Somewhere down that road I might stop, look up from my concentration, and realize that I've turned 30 years old.. 40 years old. Maybe 60. I might look up and see in front of me a reflection of a man worn, weary, wasted, and maybe a man I do not recognize at all. A man who has gone on to do things that I wouldn't dream of, gone on to see things I couldn't imagine, a man so different than who I am today I wouldn't know what to say to him. Yet a man, still alone.

So I have to ask myself the questions now - now that I've seen these ghosts, these apparitions - what do I do? Where do I go from here so that I can avoid those demons in my future? How do I interpret the past and write the present so that my future might change for the better? What is better? If some things are meant to be, if I am meant to be a farmer, can I put down my plow and stare indignantly at the sky ignoring my chores, can I sit petchulantely on the porch as the rain falls down on my crops, can I stand idly by while the weeds take over my fields, can I ignore my life, my fate, my destiny, only to turn around to see a full and flourishing garden? And if so than can I not also take these same crops and cut them down, burn their roots, upend the very soil they lie in? Will this not break the chain of my life? And if so then what is fate? Can I not control this fate to my very own liking, laying it out as a roadmap and choosing the roads I wish to travel, choosing the sites I wish to see?

And if not than what of it? Can I just see, for once, with some clarity, the road I am to be forced to travel? Could I see the cars I will travel with? Can I see my fellow travellers on this road of life I am forced down? If this is fate, this what I am living here right here as I type these words one by one by one, did fate know I would type it thrice, not twice, did it know I'd stop to ask and did it, does it, will it know when I am done? Fate. Capitol, proper, like a living breathing being this fate, a cruel boss that allows you no vacation and forces you to work on the weekend. Fate. If it is true, if it is my destiny, this fate, then can I embrace it happily, choose it, as it has choosen me? Can I reach a decision whereby I accept my fate and therefore accept a sort of serenity which I could never have without this sort of awareness and understanding of where I have come from and where I am going?

No, probably not. This talk of fate is only making me hungry - is that a joke? Fate? Are you listening? I don't think it's funny. I'm hungry. ha ha ha. I suppose that's a real knee-slapper to you. You can go fuck yourself, for all I care. I couldn't imagine having any less respect for anyone than I do for you, fate. I scoff, I scream, I swear at you in disgust.

One of these days I will choose to ignore you and do what I want. I will get up in the morning, desire an outcome, and work towards that outcome until it has happened.

I don't really believe in fate. It was an academic discussion. Ignore me.

I believe certain things. I believe I can do certain things and that certains things will happen because of who I am. Not in a pre-planned sort of way but in a probabilistic sort of way, as if by rolling the dice enough times the outcomes will become more and more predictable and, if not a bunch of dice rolls, what is life, really?