Come Again?

Here is my attempt at re-branding and re-committing. I was partial to the Be the Void project but it never felt right since it wasn’t my invention. And if you’re like me, you always had a list of band names that you thought were good but never had a band with which to perform under that moniker. Or maybe you even worked in the studio for over a year creating music with a close friend in order to perform under your favorite band name (McSunas!) and it never came to fruition. Westerlund was my favorite. I hope to be successful in my three pronged attack at graduate school in philosophy, completing a book, and regularly contributing to this blog. So here it goes.

Secondly, to all those friends to which I am about to likely offend on some level, I beg your forgiveness.

What flippant, self indulgent masturbation to say that everything happens for a reason. Or a lack of critical thinking skills. Or the consequence of ignorance. Take your pick. I have overheard these words spoken by strangers and even friends, a number of times in just the last week alone. And even those I care about express this sentiment gleefully. It pains me so much to not make a big fuss and admonish them for their foolish beliefs. I would be rude and they would be right to be upset. After all it is always in reference to some positive experience or as an expression of consolation in times of bad fortune. It would be summarily dickish to point out the absurdity of the phrase. How convenient that I have this venue so you can hear me out.

The funny thing is that it is pervasive throughout even the most educated of us. It is right about now that my stream of consciousness puts on the brakes and questions why am I even upset? My position is that they too, are a consequence of their genes and circumstance in this cosmic deck being dealt to completion. Therefore, my blunted rage is nothing but a consequenceoftheirconsequence…and, oh man, existence can sure become overwhelming for a homo sapiens from time to time.

But let us pretend like I have a justification to be upset with those whose ignorance and experience has led them to this illogical conclusion. To say that everything happens for a reason is one of the most vapid and self centered things a human being can hold as true. The expression comes from a narrative instilled since childhood: the notion that we as individuals are endemically important. You could just say that we are special. It is almost a given for most of us to live our lives as if greatness can be achieved if we can just make the right decisions at the critical moments. Our brains are biased towards moments to which we ascribe the most significance, even though every minute decision, or logic gate if you will, leading to where you are today is just as consequential, including your birth. Whenever this nonsense is uttered it is a reflection of that person’s belief that events in their lives are currently unfolding towards happiness. A belief that things will always work out in the end for them. What so many fail to realize is the cruelty and absurdity in the phrase “everything happens for a reason.” Maybe some of you can guess why.

Let us start with the cruelty…

If everything happened for a reason, that would mean that all of human history was a sequence of events that will lead us unto some happy ending or that all is wrought towards some particular goal. Let us hit upon something recognizable, historical, and horrible. Soooo, say then the Black Plague happened for a reason. Was it so that European Civilization would have an immunological advantage over the Native Americans they would encounter in the future? Then you would have to admit that the perishing of 90% of the Native American population perished from smallpox and other airborne European diseases between the time Columbus first landed in the Caribbean and the Landing of the Mayflower on Plymouth Rock happened for a reason. Do, pray tell, kind sir or madam, what reason could possibly be good enough for that? Scared, infected people, running from the disease only to spread it to the next village they encountered, unknowingly exacerbating the tragedy. The society we have inherited because of this unfortunate sequence of events sure isn’t enough to justify loss of life on such a colossal scale. And if your response is wordplay with the term reason well then what you must mean is everything has a cause. Not a reason.

Growing up in the Evangelical Christian environment, I was well acquainted with the reasons, I prefer excuses, why The Lord Almighty would allow children to be born with Down’s Syndrome or some other serious developmental disorder. It was common for believers to say that a child with Down’s or one with any mental handicap is a blessing in disguise. The Lord tests us to make us stronger for some greater purpose or challenge ahead. The sheeple would post hoc rationalize it into some abstract lesson from God. At the time I did not even bat an eye. I was living in my world of preordained destiny and I assumed that a higher power would be testing me as well. Just another side effect of telling every single kid in America that their lives matte. A consequence of suggesting that they are some sort of protagonist in their own movie. That one day they will triumph over adversity and succeed in whatever endeavour they have undertook. And to those who would interject and suggest that mentally handicapped human beings were necessary for a system of free choice as a product of evolution, well pardon my language but that is just flat out, small minded, poppycock. Since if such an individual was capable of any sort of rationality, they would rationally scream to be gifted with mental faculties on par with the rest of us. It would be hard to argue that this prevalent notion is anything but a detriment to a more fair and just society. Oh and

For most of my youth, I was certain that there was a purpose for my life. I foresaw that over time everything would just fall into place and I would be led into a divine calling. Not just any destiny either, my destiny, my divine purpose. And who could blame little old me for embracing such a notion? My kind and loving parents, the teachers and mentors I encountered, and the preachers, prophets, and church leaders I interacted with all reinforced this worldview. Words meant to be the dictate of our Creator are found in the Old Testament Book of Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” I wanted nothing more to fulfill this purpose. Like the biggest revival preachers of my youth, I would fantasize about bringing throngs of the unsaved the good news of Jesus Christ. Dreaming of one day confirming the role that God had planned especially for me. I hoped it would be me that would finally put an end to the suffering and conflict in the world.

Dreams of fulfilling a preordained life saving souls from the pit of hell may sound silly, and it absolutely is, but sentiments expressing the feelings that we are all here for a reason, that “everything happens for a reason”, are not restricted to the Christian faith. They permeate into almost every facet of American society. There is not a single title Disney character whose life is a series of random events. Every great tale weaves together a tapestry of circumstances that fit together so serendipitously, that by the time our hero or heroine fulfills their destiny we feel a great sense of satisfaction. The belief, that things happen for a reason, is wound up in our national identity as well. A city on the hill, a light in the darkness, when the chances of becoming a new nation were at their lowest ebb, Providence shined down upon our antecedents and a single battle changed the course of history. From Manifest destiny to God Bless America, the preordained success of our nation is tied up in who we are as individuals.

The sense that we are protagonists in our own movie is not just instilled culturally. It comes written in our genes, forged over millions of years of mammalian evolution. The paramount importance natural selection has placed on our survival has led us to believe our survival is important, that giving it up for another is a great sacrifice. Along with the genes that led to our instinct towards community, for in-group out-group behavior, survival behavior leads entire cultures to indulge in that self affirming narrative. From Russia, to China, the US, and, I am sure, even in Turkmenistan too. All societies blindly embrace the idea that nations are destined for greatness or that a culture must persist. And yes of course that narrative is just a tool for politicians, dictators, and powerful people to maintain control over the masses but the fact remains that almost every soul on the planet buys into it on some level. Even I have rushes of patriotism every once and while, yet I disagree with a huge proportion of decisions we, as a society, have made up to this point. It is part of the culture regardless of whether its origins are somewhat nefarious. These silly notions could very well get us into World War III, and the elimination of silly notions is the only thing that might save us.

No Reason is Good Enough

This notion is pervasive and I would argue destructive. The destruction of 40% of the species on the planet since 1960, the loss half of the large mammals, 6 mass extinctions, the Chicxulub impact are all supposed to have happened for a reason? Currently, every day approximately 19,800 children under the age of five die of malnutrition related causes and what sufficient reason could you proffer for that? On top of that there are currently 750 million malnourished people in the world. I doubt anyone would be willing to tell a single one of those people that there is a reason for them to go hungry. There are currently 17 million people held in some form of slavery whether it be unpaid servants trapped without their visas, men trapped on fishing vessels in the Pacific, or the many hundreds of thousands of those people who are trapped in sexual bondage. Would anyone reading this be willing to tell a single person one of these most unfortunate people that the abuse and violation of their sanctity happens for some greater good? I want to pause right here for a second and point out these statistic are just estimates, estimates have margins of error. So take the malnourished people for example. If the margin of error was 1%, then it is indeterminate whether or not 7.5 MILLION people are with or without enough food right now. Could you ever find a reason to justify the most basic needs of human beings would fall into even this margin of error? I would challenge anyone that actually thinks that anything happens for any reason to be able to utter this intellectually shallow and callous phrase around someone trapped in slavery, terminally ill, or malnourished. The everyday colloquial implementation of this silly notion needs to end.  

There were 360,000 births today. And according to those who still can’t accept that there is literally no point to their puny existence, all of which now require some special reason to run their course through the horror show that is human existence. Pause for a moment and think about the concept of 360,000 babies who all come prepackaged with some cosmic destiny if only the right sequence of events were to unfold. It is hardly fathomable for the human mind to even consider a thousand people whose birth come with reasons for their existence. To make the numbers even more unfathomable, there have been over 100 Billion human beings who have lived and died since the dawn of recorded history. Through ancient hunter gatherer tribes, through the Mesopotamian cultures, the Han people, the explosion of culture on the Sub-Continent, Greek and Roman peoples, the Middle Ages, all of those people lived and died for a reason? This is surely preposterous.

Even if everything happened for a reason, there would be no end to the reasons for the reasons in a incredibly long sequence of reasons that eliminates at the Big Bang. Reductio ad absurdum. If you are still holding on to this notion that whether by Divine Providence, the universe’s plan, or a pervasive hidden “energy” (whatever the fuck that means) (sidenote, energy is simply the frequency at which particles fluctuate, now you know so stop using it as a moniker for a cosmic force) that pushes your life towards a satisfying ending I do not know what else could be said on the matter.

Life does not have reasons it has causes. Think about how much different it is to frame life as “everything that happens has a cause.” Saying that a tragedy or period of suffering happened for a reason leaves us on an endless quest to decipher reasons that are beyond human understanding. Further, one would need an ultimate justification which we are incapable of knowing. I would argue this is one of the root problems that plagues humanity. The delusion that our quest for a better life, the struggle to soldier on, the triumphant victory, the propogation of our genes, my soulmate is part of some plan that we all partake in jutsfies the violence, wars, and all manner of ill deeds because it is all to ensure that our lives, our societies have meaning. When you go about your life sure that the universe is looking out for you while you find that perfect person, have those perfect kids, find the career of your destiny, you justify the same motivation for starting a war. If you disagree maybe you have already forgotten the justifications for the Russian government’s disreputable behavior or the Chinese government’s insistence on being a dick in the South China Sea? The narrative that I must find the right person, get the right job, and have my predestined life is the same narrative that allows nations to wage war.

If you follow a trail of causally linked reasons, you end up learning nothing. If you follow a chain of causes you end up back at nothing. And nothing is NOT worth fighting for, dying for, lying for, suffering for, or killing for. When you shed the impulse to assume that everything happens for a reason, you may be robbed of a life of cosmic coincidences (cause the universe just loves and supports you so much), but you gain the truth that we are all here for no reason at all. All of us stuck with existence until we can’t take it anymore or it is robbed of us too soon. There are a billion things that happen every day that are coincidental and tingle homo sapiens confirmation bias. But this is no justification to go around thinking something so selfish, narrow minded, and absurd that everything happens for a reason. If you still believe that the likelihood of your story was so low it just had to happen for a reason, please think about telling that to the person trapped in sexual slavery, the human trapped in years of war and conflict, to the billions of human beings who have lived and died just so we can sit around and watch cooking shows. Enjoy your meal.

Addendum: I began this post many months ago and just like all my writing endeavors, I was slow to publish. In between when I began this and today, my father passed away suddenly from a heart attack at the age of 66. Though in context this is a good run, it still leaves a bitter taste in one’s mouth. Pertaining to this subject I would like to leave you with a small anecdote. My father served in the military for almost 40 years. We were stationed in Marin County California and after retirement he worked hard to eek out a home in one of the most expensive places on Earth. This past year, my parents got to the place where they could upgrade the backyard by adding a hot tub. My father loved hot tubs. Whenever he traveled, he would choose hotels on this criteria only. It was installed in the last few months but my mother was unable to go in due to a cast on her leg. My father decided to wait until they could both get in it together. The night before he took a flight to see his family in Pennsylvania where he would eventually pass away, my mother was cleared to take a dip. My mother went in but my father did not. He worked his whole life to be able to afford a little luxury, to relax in his upgraded abode, revel in the therapeutic waters and high powered jets and feel some sense of satisfaction. Death robbed him of this simple pleasure: one dip in the hot tub that he worked so hard to attain. If are thinking, “boo hoo rich guy didn’t get to go in the hot tub while millions don’t have access to clean water,” you are missing the point. If everything happened for a reason, he would have been granted at least one satisfying soak. Again, the universe is a dick.