Sunday, July 21, 2013

Are Things Random or Are They Not so Random?

Ok, I was thinking about how life throws some people lemons and some are particularly sour and others not so sower.  Let's take for example someone who was sexually molested in their teens.  The question might always come up "Why did this happen to me?"  "Why not someone else?"  "Certainly it could have easily happened to someone that dressed a certain way, but why me?"

Well, I would start off by thinking that maybe life is just random like the roll of a die.  You don't know what number is going to come up.  When a die is rolled is random chance, right?  A slot machine.  A card game.  A computer pulling up a random number from one to a google.  Life just deals out random things to random people.  There's no reason to feel that you did something or that God hates you or anything like that.

But then I start thinking, well what if it isn't completely random.  I'm going to use the dice again.  And let's say you roll up a 6 three times in a row.  Lucky, right?  Chance, right?  Well, chance maybe.  I mean surely you don't really have control or intend to roll a 6 a second or third time.  Even if that's what you wanted, but think of this.  If someone or some computer were to analyze the roll from the moment you place it in your hand to the moment it stopped.  They could look at each and every movement of the die.  On top of that analyze the balance of the table, whether the table is completely flat, or even whether it was slippery or not.  Take all those into account and it can tell you why it rolled a 6.  It's because of all these events and specifications that it happened.

So, why do these things happen in your life.  Random just isn't the word for it, but much rather a completely and highly extreme set of events along with environmental elements that make these things happen, from the beginning of time until, now.  One thing leads to another.  And there is no way to tell if or when something in your life will happen.  It may not be random, but it is surely far too complicated for any man or machine to answer the question as to why a certain event in your life happened.  So, stop asking why.  It just happened.  It's not because of you.