Destiny v. Free Will

My trial settled. More on that later. Or maybe not. Regardless, it.is.finished.

So, a friend and I are having a disagreement about what type of person I am. I think I’m better able to define who I am, but, of course, immediately before this discussion I argued in another discussion, "We are not who we say we are. To insist we are is to say that the rest of the world doesn't count, that the opinions of our friends don't matter, that their honest attempts at objectivity are not really important to us. We are not who we think we are, or claim to be. We are what others say we are, which is why in courts and schools and businesses, we don't accept what people claim about themselves; we ask witnesses, teachers and references. We are who others say we are." --John Kaminski. This of course makes it somewhat difficult for me to later argue that only I can define who I am and his opinion doesn’t count. Even if I was just messing around with him when I made the initial argument.

It started with an innocent question. "So I gather you don't believe in fate or destiny?" Well, that’s just ridiculous! I do believe in fate and destiny. Wholeheartedly. Why do you think that I take it all so seriously? And so, I answered accordingly. And his reply was, "You're messing with me on the fate and destiny thing, right? I just see you as person who focuses on effort and will to move through this world." Well, shit, how does one respond to that?? Because the fact is, I do believe in free will. But I also believe in destiny. Are they mutually exclusive? I never thought so. In fact, I think it’s a matter of how you consider time. I don’t see time as linear. (This theory is less odd than my disbelief in gravity I think. I was talking to Yoda about that -- my disbelief in gravity I mean -- and he just laughed. Me thinks Yoda, who believes that pheromones explain all friendships, marriages, and aversions to peoples, is in no position to laugh at my yet unproven theories.)

Anyway, the best quote to sum up free will and destiny that I’ve ever found is, "along the path there is free will, but once the goal is reached, we realize that everything was destined." I think what that means, or rather, what it means to me, is that when we come to a fork in the road, we have a choice whether we turn right or left. However, the decision has already been made -- by us -- because time isn’t a linear thing. We as humans have to turn it into something understandable, which means it’s now, and earlier was before, and afterwards is later. But time actually isn't a straight linear line of past, present and future. So therefore, the decisions of tomorrow were already made yesterday.

And I don’t mean this to sound like a time travel thing, or the traditional time travel theory, which of course leads to the ultimate "time Traveler Paradox" -- what if you went back in time and killed your own grandfather? The problem is, of course, if you kill your grandfather then you would not be born. Thus you could not travel into the past, thus you would not kill your grandfather. Thus, you would be born causing you to again travel into the past to kill your grandfather. The ultimate paradox. But that's not what I mean when I say that time isn't linear.

Life is like a game of cards. The hand you are dealt is determinism; the way you play it is free will. ~Jawaharial Nehru That seems to suggest that life is both destiny and free will. However, under my theory, we have already played the cards. So when we get the cards, what we will choose to play have already been played. The cards we play are destined, but we made those decisions. (By the way, I love card anologies to life, so if you have any, please share.)

I am not making much sense, I know, and I have to get my thoughts together to respond to him...but it's too hard because they are seemingly contradictory. But I just don't believe they are.