Well, I have guilt because I haven't blogged all week, but there's really not been anything interesting to blog about.
Until today.
Over coffee with my mom this morning (a daily ritual), it was revealed to me that she had a tarot reading done on me when I was younger (about 10). It revealed that I would be divorced, and would never settle down with just one person. Aside from the fact that my mother would have a tarot reading on the love life of her ten-year old daughter, I found this disturbing.
If you're familiar with the story of Oedipus Rex, skip this section. It was prophesized that Oedipus would kill his father and marry his mother. So his father sent him out to be killed. As it happens, of course, he wasn't killed, but instead was taken to the outskirts of town to be raised by a shepherd, who of course, didn't tell him that he was adopted. Fast forward a few years, and when Oedipus learns of the prophesy, he leaves his adoptive parents (whom he didn't know were adoptive) so that the prophesy cannot be fulfilled. As it happens, however it is still fulfilled when he kills his biological father (though he didn't know it at the time) and marries his biological mother (who thought he was dead, anyway).
In almost every class I have taken in which this play was studied, the first question usually asked is, "Was Oedipus a victim of the prophesy, or did the decisions he made play a part in fulfilling it?"
I'm fpretty upset right now, because I feel like I was a victim. I feel like I don't have a choice in what happens to me, and that it's all predetermined. That pisses me off. If what's going to happen to me is going to happen anyway, no matter what I do, why don't I just move to an island with lots of naked towel boys?
It was suggested to me that I get a second reading done. I'm going to find someone reputable and do just that.
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There are those who think that life
Has nothing left to chance
With a host of holy horrors
To direct our aimless dance
A planet of playthings
We dance on the strings
Of powers we cannot perceive
The stars aren't aligned ---
Or the gods are malign
Blame is better to give than receive
You can choose a ready guide
In some celestial voice
If you choose not to decide
You still have made a choice
You can choose from phantom fears
And kindness that can kill
I will choose a path that's clear
I will choose free will
There are those who think that they've been dealt a losing hand
The cards were stacked against them
They weren't born in lotus-land
All preordained
A prisoner in chains
A victim of venomous fate
Kicked in the face
You can pray for a place
In heaven's unearthly estate
Each of us
A cell of awareness
Imperfect and incomplete
Genetic blends
With uncertain ends
On a fortune hunt
Thats far too fleet...
---"Free Will" by Rush
One of my friend's made this observation:
If everyone's destiny is completely pre-ordained and fixed, then we should be able to build a jail with the perfect number of cells because we should know who is going to be a criminal and who isn't. But it doesn't work that way, does it?
Is is harder to believe that everything is predestined and there is no choice, or is it harder to believe that everyone has free will and there is every choice?
Nota bene: even in free will, not every choice is yours to make, sometimes it's someone else's choice that affects you, which is hard in it's own way. You do have the choice on how to respond (which I have to tell myself all the time)
I have heard many different theories about free will and determination. I happen to believe that any view of the future, be it psychic visions, prophetic dreams, tarot reading, or even vivid daydreams are all possibilities of the future.
When I learned what little I know of tarot, my teacher told me that the cards showed what could be, taken from what has been and what is now, not necessarily what will be.
And mothers sometimes have odd ways. I was in my late 20's when my mother told me she thought I was tone deaf and always had been. This was when I was trying to learn how to play piano.
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