Calvinball for Dummies.

For a long time I've been, if not loud, at least clear on my view of fate. Predestination, fate, destiny, whatever you call it, I've always taken issue with it. We are masters of our own destiny, and fate is nothing more than that which we should spit at as we move on our own paths. That's the opinion I've held for a long time. But it's something I realize I never put much real thought into. It's the realization of that, and how it's affected my life that's left me inspired today. It bothers me because for all my claiming that fate is an excuse to not act, I have been more than willing to put off my own choices because it's “out of my power”.

Fate by another name is just as much of an excuse though. And it left me with the realization of what it was about this excuse that bothered me. If I sat down and accepted fate, that there was some kind of predetermined path my life would take, that my choice was irrelevant, that would mean that I would have to accept a simple statement: That I was fated to be miserable. If I accept fate, I have to accept that, and this would mean that my misery had no way to change. But for every excuse to live with my misery instead of doing something else to fix it, I'm accepting that.

And of course, recognizing the problem is normally one of the first steps to solving it. It certainly lifted a burden from me. The “problems” I have, in my old way of thinking, really were out of my power. I had no answers, so the problems were out of my power. But like any good underdog story (and everyone with a problem is an underdog), the trick isn't finding the solution to the problem, it isn't a training montage and becoming “good enough”. That's the kind of thinking that gets you in the problem in the first place, doing the same thing over and over. The real answer is a bit trickier, but less frustrating after a while:

Change the problem. We have so much more control over ourselves than we think we do. Not to say we can control ourselves entirely. I've watched people try, and seen it crash and burn terribly. Drug cocktails were the issue there, but sometimes it really is beyond our power to change ourselves through willpower alone. But not often. Chasing after a goal only to find the goal's been blocked off? You can either sit an mope like a good little emo kid, and cry about how you're so powerless and fated to suck at life and everything it entails, or you can say “The goalpost is ten yards further and blocked with barbed wire? Good thing I stopped playing football and started playing ultimate. Shorter field, s'all good”.

Cheat at life. You're playing against a rigged deck against nasty odds, but the dealer's either three blind ladies, or isn't there to begin with, so who's gonna stop you? Play by your own rules, and suddenly landing on that hotel at the boardwalk isn't too bad. I mean, how else will you get the chance to show off your sweet new cyborg-dog (which captains its own battleship)?

But what about the other players? The playing field isn't even if you change the rules, right? Now, that's stretching the metaphor, but let's run with it. If they want to complain because you turned soccer into Calvinball, well, you can't argue much. But that's just it, you don't have to. The game was really just Calvinball from the start, you just hadn't realized it yet. The rules were NEVER set down at the start of the game, and the people that win are the ones that tweak the rules enough to make it work. The trick is remembering that even if you're changing the rules, you can't just throw the board to the ground, burn the field, and say that's how the game is played. There's still boundaries. There's still limits. And you can't change someone else's rules. It's mostly internalized. But you can show them the way.

Nobody's going to give you a map, no matter how much you want one. But saying that there's no map, so you may as well sit down and be where you are despite the rising tides and rain of fire, that's giving up. That's accepting fate. And that's not worth the pain.

I don't know when I got bitter.

I'm not really sure what it is I'm writing about right now. All I know is that I need to write. I'm stuck in the same rut I'm always stuck in, and writing seems to be all I have left to me in some ways. Either writing or drowning myself in distraction, some halfhearted way of surviving myself until I can stumble into the same mistake again. That's what I normally do, and I'm sure I'll do it again anyway. But who knows, perhaps I'll remember this, at least perhaps I'll remember it more than I remember it when I tell myself never again. And maybe that's a sign. I keep making the same mistake, and keep paying for it. Is it just masochism? I would call it fate, but it is things like this that make me fight so hard to know that there is no fate. Because I wish nothing more than to escape it if it means repeating these foolish mistakes so many times. But then why? I suppose it could just be without reason, that my mistakes are entirely my own, with no purpose behind them. But somehow that doesn't seem to be right. If I'm supposed to learn a lesson, though, this is not the easiest way to do it. Because throwing myself at the same situation, time and time again, that is clearly not working.

What could I be meant to learn here? Humility? That would be an interesting choice. That I am not in control of that which is most important to me, despite whatever I do. Perhaps it is supposed to be the value of accepting where you are over where you want to be. But these are both things I know. Perhaps not always act on, perhaps not always live, but they're things I know. Perhaps it's the opposite, though. Perhaps the lesson is supposed to be to take more pride in myself, to trust myself more, to act more and take control instead of leaving things to chance. But even so, the path has only ever been made clear enough to walk down once its door has been closed. Even when I stop and think, I never seem to notice that I want something until it is gone, and that desire consumes me until I am made aware of the next thing that I cannot have. In a sense, that by itself is what makes the whole problem. But when the problem is that I can't see, what can I do? I do what I can to leave my eyes open, but there is only so much that will do. I have been told to go and seek out instead of waiting to find, but that holds its own troubles. To seek out implies that I know what I want already. The solution to the problem is to solve the problem. This obviously doesn't work.

So what am I to do? Cast out nets on all sides, to try everything and see what sticks? But in a way, that's why I'm where I am now. I've cast out lines, and each bite I get has already been hooked by someone else. But that makes me wonder. Why is it that I should settle for letting someone else catch my fish, to run with the metaphor. The door has been closed, hasn't it? It feels like the only option left is to just give up. But there's always an option. There's always a choice. It may not be a choice that matters, but it is still a choice, isn't it? It may be a hard one, and it may not pay off, though. Give up. If not give up, continue fighting. If not continue fighting, then letting go. Giving up and letting go. So similar, but letting go is so much worse. To excise the problem entirely instead of trying to continue living with what is, in one way or another, failure. But both of these aren't options I much like. I'm stubborn. I'm a fighter in that way. But fighting is tiring, especially when no progress seems to be made. We all need a place to lay our head down, a place to rest. "I hit the ground and I'm still running, but I need a place to stay tonight. I swear I'll be gone in the morning, I just need somewhere warm to close my eyes." This, of course, has its own risks though. When what we want is a place to rest, and this is where we are being forced to either give up, let go, or continue fighting, what can we really do? This is where failure can break us. Do we have the strength to keep going? This is the true test of life. And I think this is where I was meant to come to. When all you want is the comfort of safety, when you run dry on places to find it, what do you do?