Arts and Destiny
I always felt that poets often jot down poems to confuse people and wear that smirk on the face. “See, I write some lines with rhyming syllables and you end up taking so many versions from it”, would be the thought that should have gone through the poet’s brain. To put it in my own words, poems were used by people who do not want to say things directly, like its counterpart, classical dance and music. If you could see Classical dance, the girl or guy reproduces steps taught by their teachers. Very few invent steps, but it had to fall within a framework.
Poems and dance were made to force people to respect those who orchestrate it. If not, how would that section of people earn money then? Professions were created to earn money and by forcing an authoritative stance, people in art took an unjustified position, making non-artistic people to celebrate them in a godly manner. Anyone who creates must be god, because, god is their ultimate creator. If you could say what you want to say directly, without confusing the person reading it, without confusing yourself whether it is understandable for the receiver, why don’t you say it directly? Why do you fancy yourself deviating from the communication protocol, as though it makes you one step above the receiver? If poems were meant to be riddles or puzzles, they need not be in literature section, they should have ended up in mathematics section of the library. When you want to convey something to a group of people, say it directly. Poems and dance forms were created by people to keep themselves comfy in the elite category.
Another arena that constrains people under specific ‘compressions and rarefactions’ is classical music. A classical singer should not deviate from the rules and regulations framed by some guy in the past. In Western dance and music, you have to use the designated steps.
Almost all of the forms of art were created by people in those areas, not only to earn money, but to show themselves that they are not like the illiterate, no-brainer, unintelligent, working masses. Or they thought that doing the same kind of work is not intelligent and does not involve usage of brain. Of course not, you need to be mentally active even in a bored monotonous job. These artists try to attach themselves to kings and noble people and cheat them by saying simple things in a complex manner. And the usually foolish king and the ministers would be swallowing their time in decoding those encrypted arts.
The reason why I took Poetry, Dance and Music for argument is, people usually attach Arts to be their destiny.
She/he was destined to be a poet, an actor, a dancer, a musician. That talent is gift of god.
You need to be a prodigy to excel in arts. It should be written in your fate to be an artist.
This was the destiny that was attached to people for long ages. Destiny in the field of science came very much later, as it was considered a blasphemy to practice science in the dark ages. Yes, you can practice religious science. How was the world created? God-did-it. That was an excellent scientific theory that ruled the entire intelligent beings for around thousands of years and even now.
Nobody is destined to be an artist, or to be a musician, or to be singer, not an actor. But, everybody is destined to die. You can never contradict that. But the way in which a living being would die or lose its indication of life is not destined.
Your destiny shifts as you move towards it. Or, you make your own destiny, Rather, I would say, wherever you end up, that is your destiny.
Let us proceed with a few examples. It was the time before the monotheistic religions gained stronghold. A farmer is working hard in the field sowing the seeds, watering it and standing guard of it against animals and fellow men who might ruin it. Now, what is his destiny? Yes, he is destined to be a farmer. Why? He was destined to be a farmer. Now will you shut up and not question the plan of destiny-maker as he works in mysterious ways. Why was he destined to be a farmer and not a hunter? Or a fighter? Or a woman? Or teacher? Or king? Why should he end up as a hardworking farmer, who has to till the land of some other noble person and beg for money to feed his family?
Destiny/Fate
It was because, he thought it is in his fate to be a farmer. Here, there is a difference between destiny and fate. Destiny is synonymous with success, while fate is synonymous with failure. When you become a musician, you are destined to be one. When you fail to be an acclaimed artist and end up painting in roadside for few coins, then it is in your fate to suffer. So, an ever-loving destiny-maker casts you to lower economic conditions because he loves to work in mysterious ways. He wants to test you, but he does not care to test the rich people.
Why should god always test the good people? Because, that is why lazy butts who consider themselves as good do not work hard to move ahead. So, their stupid laziness turns out to be a test of god. And when you pray to that most merciful and most benevolent god, he might think of removing the blockades from the destiny he had created. With an all knowing destiny-maker, he knew of your destiny, he knew of your desire to attain that destiny, he knew that he is going to block you; he knew that you will pray to remove those blocks and after you reach your destiny, you thank him for guiding and attribute your success to him. But, when you are blocked more and banished from reaching your destiny, he has some reason for doing it so. Because, he knew your destiny, he knew you would fail, so he did not want to listen to your prayers or acknowledge it. He might have changed it, but it would go against his plan.
Compare this with a Don influencing people who are under him. He will know what he can do to you, so he will keep blockades. When you kiss his hands and fall to his feet, then he will remove those blockades and guide you to your goals. All he needs is your devotion and loyalty. So, Mafia dons are in one way destiny-makers. Or they are better than god, because you see them and you are sure your prayers are heard by the don.
When your destiny is already created and when you are guided by an invisible force that knows the destiny, then what work you do to reach that destiny? Prayers. You can just pray, while your destiny is shifted to somewhere reachable. If prayers had such powers, why can’t people just stop visiting hospitals and start praying to get a cure? Is it not a naïve thought that your destiny is a pre-planned one? If your destiny is already placed, how can you know what that destiny is?
Imagine that a person in car is stationed at a parking lot some thousand miles away from you. You can only get to see him, when you know of him and his whereabouts beforehand. And, you should have communicated about your scheduled meeting with him. Or, without doing any of these, you just start going in some random direction, then someone guides you to a place and whoever you meet is the person you wanted to meet. Which one of these sounds good when related with destiny? That you are informed of your destiny and you tell it that you meet it in specified time, or, that you start working and end up meeting destiny at some point? If the former is true, then it makes it clear that destiny is pre-determined. If the latter is true, then it makes it clear that you make your own destiny.
Like Toy Soldiers
Destiny, as we define it, cannot be pre-fixed. It is not pre-determined. It cannot be. A pre-determined destiny reduces us to be just pawns in the hand of a non-existing destiny-maker. If he wants to play game using us, with whom is he playing? His own destiny? Her own destiny? Or its own destiny? What if the destiny-maker was an earthworm that created us with its intelligence and which sacrifices itself to become our food we eat and wine we drink. If that god wants to move you to a place which he had created, are you just his gaming characters? What kind of fun does he derive from moving you across places? Does he need fun, when he is supposed to be the epitome of happiness? When you can be placed nearer to a pre-determined destiny, why does he keep you far away and put blockades in–between? So that you can learn things and understand the working of that destiny maker before reaching your destiny. If so, that destiny maker should be a self-boasting thing filled with vanity. Being proud of torturing his own creations by creating more obstacles to them?
If destiny is pre-determined, why should you worry about it? After all, it is going to happen. You can just sit and loiter across your homes and sleep all through the day. And, since you are destined, you are going to get it. John is destined to get a pizza and since it is pre-determined, he does not need to go to pizza outlet for it. So, the supernatural thing pre-planned this destiny of John, created home delivery, created so many human who are destined to deliver the pizza to John. So, for fulfilling the destiny of John, more creatures with destiny of delivering pizza to John were made. If you cannot wake that lazy bum of John to get to pizza store, you end up creating many other living beings to deliver it to him. Why? Because, I had written his destiny and I cannot rewrite it. If so, why can’t I write his destiny of going to pizza outlet, while I was creating him? It would have made my task simple. But, the most beneficial and best planner needs to put things in complex manner, such that people find him to work in mysterious ways. Thus, destiny-maker should be an artist, if he had existed. Because, as I earlier emphasized in the article, that an artist makes simple things appear complex, to prove his superior intelligence.
Both the terms, destiny and fate, were employed by people, who do not want to blame themselves for the result of their actions. Or the combined result of the universal action. So, the density of the destiny is zero. You do not have a destiny. You do not have fate. You do not have a purpose.
Do we have any purpose?
We do not have any pre-determined purpose. That a certain individual is created to suffer alone throughout his/her lifetime is not an intelligent design. If a creature is created to do sin, then why write its fate or destiny to commit that sin? If that sin is going to cast him into hell or put him into endless births to reap the sown seeds of sin, why let him do that sin in the first hand? It is because he mishandles his free will. If a will is given to do stuffs on a person’s own intelligence and then later claiming it as deviating from a destined plan, can it be called freewill? Why give free will in the first place, if you do not want that creature to act free?
Hitler was not created to orchestrate the destiny of millions of Jews in Poland and Germany. Let us see how it would have been done, ‘the destiny determination part’. “Oh shit! I had created Hitler and I had destined him to kill so many Jews. So let me create millions of Jews, and let me watch them die in the concentration camps as I turn my deaf ears away from their prayers”. Sounds really intelligent. So, the purpose of Hitler was not pre-determined. It was determined by him and by the inaction of the fellow Germans who failed to control him. It is his choice and the choice of the rest of the universe.
A quarter of a million Japanese were not destined to be killed in the horrific nuclear bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. “Oh shit! I had let my creation to unlock power of nuclear bomb. But, they have to use it. Let me see. Ah aah.. There a million Japs. Let me blow them all. I hereby destine those 240,000 Japanese to be killed on the same day by the dropping of an atomic bomb by my own creations. Boom!”. Employing his own toys to destroy fellow toys. Creation sounds to me like a child’s play. Or, employing hitmen to finish the job.
Billions of people were not destined to die in wars, famines, earthquakes, floods, massacres, thunderstorms and petty fights. They were not destined to die by epidemics, ethnic cleansing, cancer and diarrhea. They were not destined to die by accidents. They were not destined to die until the very moment, where their body becomes incapable of further functioning.
People are not brought to the single ship called Titanic to end their life in middle of a freezing ocean. They chose to be on the ship and they chose to sink along with the ship. But, your choice is also limited by the choice of the rest of the universe. As you move along every second, your choice weaves itself with choice of the rest of universe appearing complex to you at first sight. But, as you go deeper, it is all simple. When you die, the atoms that constitute you go from one form to another.
The purpose of the stone that hit your head is not to kill you according to your fate. It was not created in the volcano millions of years ago to end your life created just a few years ago. The train that thrashed you to pieces was not inserted into the world to bring your life to an end. You choose to go near it and the driver chose to concentrate on some other thing than noticing you in the track. An asteroid formed millions of years ago does not have purpose to kill the thousands of people in the earth. George W Bush was not created to finish off lakhs of Iraqis in a war. All these events happened by choice of each and every elements of Universe and we call it Destiny or Purpose or Fate for simplicity purposes.
Of course, there is a purpose or destiny and that is fully determined by you. The purpose of my life is to question things that are told not to be questioned. It was not pre-written. I made it as my purpose. I could have made many other purposes like marrying and having a child, being an army man, a doctor, a pilot or my dream of being an astronomer. I had the liberty to choose them. But, I did not do so because of my laziness in holding on to my chosen purpose.
Chickens are not meant to end up in our plates and goats are not meant to be sacrificed. Chicken lays egg not for us to eat. Cows do not secrete milk for us to drink. Water does not flow for us to drink. It does not rain for our crops to grow. Sun was not created for providing light to us. Stars were not formed to decorate our night skies. Moon was not formed to be poetically praised. You were not created to relish this world. We do not have any purpose, we create them. We do not have any pre-written destiny, we make them. We are not bound by fate, we bind ourselves.
But, a life without a purpose is boring. Boredom is also a choice. You choose to be bored, when you have so many things to do. You can get on the road and run for days. You can choose to sleep and pass your time. It is your choice to be bored or not. Your brain can never be bored as it keeps on working even when you are sleeping.
In a movie, the purpose of villain was to show how good the hero is. The purpose of hero is to finish off the villain. The purpose of female protagonist is to act as an agent to enable hero finish off the villain. But, in the real world, there are no such pre-determined purposes. A man with the purpose of killing anyone for the other person not falling within his moral strata does not make him a hero. A hero is not born or made; rather he is celebrated as one. That is why, a hero of a particular population is villain of another population. In mythology, the creator wants to prove himself to his creations. So, instead of just deploying himself in all the minds of his creations with a single button click, he creates a person to do sin, thereby destroying few of his creations and then he appears to finish off the demon that he had himself created. Why waste so much of time to prove, if he had the power to do it by just make his creations realize his presence? Why appear to only certain person and make him as messenger? Why not contact everyone? Why create a messenger to contact his very own creations? Why create them and destine them to make sin and disconnect them from your network, and then send a messenger to contact them? Why not write their destiny such that they can be contacted anytime? What is the need for a messenger? Does that mean the omnipotent superpower could not contact himself? If so, how can he judge people and record their sins? There can be such endless questions.
Anthropic Principles and Destiny
There can be two principles that can be related to the purpose word. They are the strong anthropic principle and the weak anthropic principle. Strong principle says that the purpose of the universe is to present itself to the human observer to be researched. Weak principle says that universe which chose to help create life and intellectual life forms had the opportunity to be analysed by those life forms. In my view, both are wrong. I am not a scientist, but I can argue against them both.
First of all, the creation of all these matters around us is not for life forms. If so, every other planet and every other star system and every other galaxy would end up having life. We have not communicated with any such life forms. I can try to disprove the Strong principle that we are made for analyzing the universe. Of course not, we are not made; it is our cells that group themselves. If so, do the cells have intelligence? The problem with human beings is that we measure intelligence in our own terms. We have to remove the human lens and try to approach the world in various angles.
The dogs might think of us as less intelligent to understand its communication and its view of the universe. Dogs might even have principle and observations about the universe. Maybe, every other living form has a higher intellectual understanding than us about the universe, having been born before us in the earth. Maybe, they have understood that there is no purpose of life and hence do not form families and works and machines and computers. Their thoughts might not be in human perspective, but might be in their own perspective. Like how we get irritated by foreign tongues, they too get irritated by our words. If animals could communicate among themselves better than us and handle situations better than us, does it mean they are more advanced animals than human beings?
Speaking of the weak anthropic principle, the purpose of universe is not to create life forms. Again, the creation of life forms is not the best choice for the universe. It is best choice for us alone because we do not want to be seen as worst choice. If you could say, “What is the purpose of these things going around sun, if it could not have some spectator?”. I might answer with a question, “What is the purpose of an art, if it has no spectator?”. For people who had wondered, why did I chose arts to talk about destiny might now understand that I used arts because of the perspective that it had carried with it. That something should be exhibited for the spectators.
A mute dance to a blind audience does not have a purpose.
But you can consider it as your purpose. Because, the audience need not see your dance. What are you trying to do with that art form? Are you entertaining them or are you using a platform that had forced people to choose your art as an entertainment? Human beings who had adopted this artistic perspective searched for audience for every action occurring in the universe. So, was the universe just a waste junk before 3 billion years, because it did not have an observer back then? Does it need to create an audience to watch its performance? If so, the universe and the non-living matter should also have the same amount of artistic intelligence as you have. Which proves that the whole universe is alive and kicking.
Next time, when you feel you do not have any purpose, read this article again with a purpose of reading it. After all, the whole universe does not have any purpose. We create purpose. Nobody is useless, nobody should be used more or less. Purpose of teacher is not to teach, he chose to teach. Purpose of parents are not to feed kids, but they chose to take care. And the purpose of me is not to write this article, but I chose to write. And the purpose of you is not to read this, but you chose to read this.
