So . . . we are unreliable autobiographers. There are many reasons for this, such as memory (we actually re-code memories every time we access them, so our memories mutate over time), narrative fallacy (we like "good stories," so we remember and tell the facts that make the best story, not necessarily what actually happened), and perspective (we are not omniscient narrators). Today I'm going to discuss the last of these.
There is a scene in the movie "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (which I saw on an airplane to pass the time - poor choice, it made the trip longer) where something happens to a main character (no spoilers here!). The scene is set up by the narrator saying all of the seemingly inconsequential things that happened in order for this one important thing to occur - a lady forgets her keys, a driver isn't paying attention, etc. If only one of these things hadn't happened, the event wouldn't have happened. It is by far the most memorable scene in the movie for me (owing more to the drudgery of the rest of the film than the execution of the scene).
This is a better representation of how things happen. A common label for this phenomenon is the Butterfly Effect (another movie, didn't see this one, looks bad). An inconsequential act (a butterfly flapping its wings in Tibet) leads to a consequential one (Hurricane Katrina, for example). But even this is flawed, because it assumes we can trace the inconsequential acts, and as actors in our own lives, this is impossible. Millions of butterflies flap their wings, but there's no way of knowing which one will cause the devastation. A bunch of drunken hicks have babies, who grow up to voting age, and George W. Bush becomes president. That kind of devastation.
Think of the most important event in your own life. Now think of all of the decisions you had to make for this event to have occurred. Lots, right? Most of them didn't seem important at the time, and even if they did, they probably weren't undertaken with this end goal in mind (some might of been, but if you can only come up with those directional actions, you aren't thinking of everything). Now, to further complicate things, think of all of the actions that had to occur that were choices (or happenstance) of other people. And the tree branches out from there.
To use another movie scene, the opening of Adaptation (good movie) starts with the birth of the universe, because without that, there would be no story to tell. If you go far enough, everything that has ever happened in the universe would have had to have happened exactly as it did for this one event to happen to you. Does your brain hurt? Mine does.
This usually leads to a discussion of free will versus determinism. But neither is satisfactory on its own. The determinism argument requires the necessity for not only an omnipotent god, but also one that is continually controlling all aspects of everyone's life. Free will implies that we can make our choices and direct our own lives. I think that another view is more complete than the others (if less fulfilling to most), that of randomness. Things happen. No meaning, no story. We make our own choices, but those choices are provided and guided by the circumstances we find ourselves in. A man meets his wife only because they were both in the same place at the same time. That meeting was random. The choices they made since then were mostly their own, but only existed because of random occurrence. Therefore the very existence of their children (and by extension, all of us) is random.
Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, don't it? Talk about meaning in the universe.
Before you hand over the rest of your life to randomness and spend your days watching The View and eating Cheetos, though, remember that we still can choose within our circumstances. We can't guarantee outcomes, but we can still buy our figurative lottery ticket. And when you tell the stories of your life, keep them in perspective, and don't forget to include random chance in the closing credits.
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