Predestination and the Abyss

Upon glory shines the self, while our fall calls for predestination. With the consequences weighing on us a distinction is to be made, appropriating them for myself or rejecting them as undesirable consequences of destiny. Here we are in the realization of the ideological frame, our subjectivity reshaping the existential path based on where we stand.

In case you have read my text about “Decisions or Choices”, we are now looking into how we perceive the relation between the self and destiny. More specifically, how the path and the consequences are felt as belonging to oneself or distant to it (the functioning of some other power, destiny, karma, dharma, predestination, etc).

In regards to deciding a path, the subjectivity works in denial. Let me take again the example of the Partisans, to stand up and fight while most probably die. Is this not, for many, an irrational stance? Illogical? Incoherent? “Makes no sense!” And as such it is assumed that standing up and fighting is not a path. Because of the consequences? Because there is more to gain through another path? To gain what? In a detrimental relation to the self perhaps?

Let us unveil the abundance of possibilities and take note that most of these paths are being “denied an existence” because they do not fit the already established ideology of the individual. 

Logic, reason and common sense are merely words for shielding the other pathways. We shall take note that those other existential pathways (decisions) do not disappear by calling them names (irrational, unreasonable and so on). 

    Here the game of time and its dialectical function has to be emphasized, not to look at this in linear terms. We have to ask ourselves: have I fixed my mind before even considering the problem I am addressing? “That is not an option!” someone can be heard saying. Denial of “the other pathways” is the distinctive trait of these individuals.

We should remember Protagora's statement: we are, each one of us, the measure of our own lives and the world around us. Thus all that is left is consequences. Because to deny “the other pathways”, the other decisions that could have been made, is to preclude ourselves behind a facade of predestination.

One dilemma can be summarized in the following statement: “I have taken the only path there was and the consequences have not been favorable”. In this way the ideological bias has not only got rid of any other pathways (decision) that could have been taken but also becomes fixed through the result. Meaning, now that I have seen that the consequences have been dis-favorable, can I ask myself if there was any other path I could have taken? Can I live with the anger, sorrow, despair and regret of that?

Let me refer to “Decisions or Choices”: the existential decision is felt as already being fixed in us, we feel it as an impossibility to go against it, it is either/or, to choose or deny myself. However, this does not mean that there are no other pathways in sight. I can see them but none of them, none of these other pathways, is mine. 

The charade of the road towards truth and the unveiling of absolute reality is the attempt of those who are greatly biased by the ideological frame and cannot shatter their own forced objectivity.  

A praising of idols occurs. But this is the same praise in which we should include ourselves. Is it not that reason, logic and whatever word is the utmost ontological deity in the universe. It is “I” who praises and defines it as such. “I choose to give the greatest place of all to…”. Otherwise, if the consequences of my decisions are favorable, do they belong to predestination? Destiny? Karma? To Reason? Or to me that I have made “the right decision” by praising the “right idol” according to my desired results?

The “lenses of ideology” create this impossibility: we cannot see the other’s path. The distinction should be key here: it is not that I should follow someone else's path but I am not even able to see it. “What else am I unable to see?” - echoes as a wake up call.

Here we have two distinctive stances. “I have taken the right path” and “the others are not following the right path”. How much does it affect myself and my choices that someone else is deviating from my righteous ways? In the most internal psychological frame: is it that my convictions are so fragile that I require to undermine the other’s paths for my own sake? For my own sanity? Trying to keep the pieces of me together by calling it “the abyss” to everything outside my truthful path? When I discover that the consequences of my decisions are detrimental to myself, shall I deny the previous other paths (crossroads) at hand in order to conceal my decision? Will I state that there was no other path for the sake of shaking off the burden on responsibility towards my reality?

Consider all this as a shift in perspective subject to the moment in which we encounter the problem, our position in the time-line. To take a decision while standing in the crossroads can make us feel powerful, we are empowered with the possibility to define ourselves! But in view of the consequences we might just relativize that past moment: there was nothing else to choose. And if that was the case: why did I feel so good and powerful back then, in the past, standing at the crossroads then? Do I regret it now? Can I disengage from deciding my faith back then and the burden of responsibility today? In doing so… do I deny my own will and power?

We measure our lives through the blood, sweat and tears we put in our own path. Sometimes the previous efforts make it impossible for us to see any other way, the synergy of the past events narrows our views. “There was nothing else I could have done”. If that is true, if this was an existential decision (in which we define ourselves) why regret it? Do you regret choosing the path which is yourself? Or do you doubt that is truly your path? That you felt it, back in the crossroads, where the decision should have been made and you failed to be brave? Do you regret it now because you wish you had not chosen yourself but to choose the benefits provided by the other pathways? This case is the sorrow provided by another feeling, a cruel self knowledge state exemplified by: “I wish I had not chosen myself but the benefits of the other path”. This is, implicitly and perhaps never exposed, the most despairing situation to face.

Let me remark on this last, it is a common symptom. With the results at hand, the person doubts. “Would I choose myself again knowing these results?” The feeling is one that says “No, I would have not chosen myself, I would have taken another path”. There can be nothing more despairing for this person. Because in view of the results it has disengaged from this existential decision and self, has denied himself. The doubt turns the person into desiring to choose  another path (and its benefits) rather than the self. This statement leaves the person with nothing: not the benefits of the other path and the denial of the self (the feeling of alienation of its power and solitude).

Look at the cyclical relation, the dialectical formula. From the future the person desires to go back to the past, at the crossroads, and deny itself there in order to have the benefits of another present in the now. It implies the subjugation of the self to the formula of benefits, it comes to exemplify that it does not operate through a superior power of the self but merely carried by exchanges, benefits and all in all: convenience (utility? Pragmatism? rationality?)

One last bias I wish to refer to: our subjectivity based on the duality of simplicity and un-simplicity. My path is always impossible, for the other, to grasp and comprehend. But the other’s pathway is very simple to me: it is wrong and cursed to fall into the abyss.  Are we not all abyss walkers for someone else who thinks of itself to be the truth revealed? 

Imagine this vacuum in the vast universe, this abyss of darkness and despair. I, myself, see my path, I walk over something consistent, tangible, reasonable, true! While the others… What are they doing? They seem to be walking but there is nothing under their feet, just the abyss. Are they blind? No. Is it possible for them not to notice the risk they are taking? I yell at them to jump into my path, protect themselves from the unnecessary danger of the fall. One of them looks at me and yells back: “Don’t you fear walking without a path under your feet?”. I reflect to myself: “This man is mad and the rest of them have lost all their sanity too, blinded by their own ideologies. I know the truth”.