The only reason that there seems to be an incredbile lack of Fate, and an equally incredible amount of pseudo-Fate, in today's society is that we have lost faith in its true importance and have therefore taken upon ourselves the task of wiping it completely out of existence (true Fate, that is, not pseudo-Fate, which is merely our own concoction we desperately cling to in order to fill the void true Fate has left behind). This is because our society values, above all else, control, and Fate is the one beautiful thing that cannot possibly survive in a controlled environment. Thusly, we have slowly strangled Fate into thin forms of coincidence that we quickly brush aside during our one-hour lunch breaks on Tuesday afternoons in the local cafe before returning quickly to the office.
In modern times, Fate has no room in which to perform. The simple fact is that people have become so completely obsessed with controlling every aspect of their lives, that there is simply nothing left to Chance, without which Fate cannot be carried out. Fate is a strange set of circumstances and coincideces which tie certain souls to certain places and times, as well as together. However, today's people's trust in Chance is far less, and their fear of the unexpected far greater. They set up their lives in order to avoid any set of circumstances which might lead to an uncomfortable or unprepared-for situation. Although it is true that Chance and Fate will sometimes have negative consequences, these are only equally so, if that, of, and never more so than, those which natrually occur in the controlled environments.
One of the reasons Chance and Fate are viewed as so undesirable is not because the consequences are often bad, but because they are unwanted through two faults inherent in many people. First, many are easily firghtened by the unexpected or unknown. Fear, it is true, leads to many things, such as misunderstanding, narrow-mindedness, hate, and increased fear and paralysis. Unfotunately, many people's fear of the unexpected stems from their isolation in a controlled life. Exposure to unpredictability often decreases the fear it holds for most.
The second modern fault is that people become attached to the wrong things. Man has a natural propensity to form bonds with other souls, places and times. Unfortunately, in a controlled environment, he often has no access to those things with which he was meant to bond (by Fate), and so often attaches himself to other things not necessarily true to him (these mistaken bonds are often just as real and strong as Fated bonds, however, they more often lead to suffering, or, worse, nothing at all). Pseudo-Fate is nothing more than when someone believes he was meant for something for the sole reason of having convinced himself of something he instinctly knows is not true. An easily seen example of this occurence (which, even in a natural environment, is normal) is a teenager's tendency to declare undying love for his current significant other. This stems from the newly discovered longing for romantic attachment most teenagers experience which cannot usually be immediately be fulfilled.
When left up to Fate, one soon discovers that many of the most meaningful bonds are those which form during a brief or chance meeting between the two parties. However, because of modren day paranoia and anti-social behavior, these meetings are becoming rarer and people turn to everyday familiar faces to form their desperately longed-for attachments. These attachments keep people even more firmly rooted to one spot and in control of their lives, through the fear of loosing these bonds, still real and important, as contrived as they may be.
It has been established that, if left completely to Fate, truly bonded souls, places and times, will happen upon each other again and again and never truly be lost (as so easily are contrived bonds). This is because of the verasity and shared-destiny of these beings, which cannot be destroyed by circumstances alone. However, because of the frighteningly and discouragingly low amount of trust each person has in Fate today (because of its seemingly consistent habit of messing up carefully controlled situations in a negative sense), rarely can one find someone who acknowledges the inherent and healthy lack of control and has resigned, happily, to allowing Fate at least some say in life, room in which to perform its miracles.
This sad fact is not only true, but steadily worsening, and soon Fate will be dead, and soceity will be forced to survive in an environment completely of its own design. Now that is a truly depressing thought.
Notes:
FATE - Something that one way or another happens for a reason that seems completely unreasonable at the time, but may eventually make sense in the future, or made sense sometime in the past. In other words, something that happens that, against all odds, makes perfect sense and causes other things to happen that make perfect sense, although the reason it happened in the first place may seem completely random.
CHANCE - There are theories that there is no such thing as chance, or "coincidence". These theories support the held idea that Fate, or "design", is in abundance in an uncontrolled environment. However, I have chosen to use the word "Chance" to refer to the circumstances and characteristics of the uncontrolled environment itself.
PSEUDO-FATE - The contrived occurences that people claim to be Fate unknowingly because of the natural propensity of man to look for Fate in his life. Best described as an example, such as this: A woman is in a car crash and is pulled from the reckage and resusitated by a complete stranger. Soon after she regains consciousness, a co-worker that she's been flirting with shows up on the scene and, naturally, comforts her and stays with her as they head to the hosipital. The woman claims that Fate brought she and her co-worker together, when really the stranger who actually saved her, whom she ignored because of the fact that he
THE CONTROLLED ENVIRONMENT VS. THE FREE-FLOWING - By these I simply mean the differences in how people view reality. In a controlled environment, the people insist on believing that everything that happens can be somehow connected with a reasonable event in the past that had clear consequences at the time of its occurence, and so refuse to acknowledge random or outside forces manipulating what they see as a very orderly world. People who live in a free-flowing environment are those who have learned that their actions may or may not have the foreseen consequences, and occurences may not have been the obvious consequences of anything in particular, or anything they can control; however, they still have control over their own actions and how they interact with the Chance in which they live. These people tend to deal better with the unexpected because they're more fleixble and accepting. Although reality does not differ much between these two environments, how the people react does greatly.
TO SUMMARIZE: Basically, Fate will never die, but will increasingly "interfere", causing negative consequences, in an increasingly controlled environment, even though Fate is never entirely negative (and is not synonymous with what it is often mistaken as, "bad luck", when it doesn't fit a pre-established point of view of life) and would be far pleasanter if allowed to preform naturally in a free-flowing environment...
TO SUMMARIZE THE SUMMARY: If Fate is allowed to work in a free-flowing environment, its negative consequences and "messing up of plans" would greatly decrease; however, this can only occur if people change their attitudes towards life.
TO SUMMARIZE THE SUMMARY OF THE SUMMARY: There can be the perfect balance of Fate and self-control if people would stop trying to have too much of either.
TO SUMMARIZE THE SUMMARY OF THE SUMMARY OF THE SUMMARY: People are the problem.
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