Meanderings

I saw myself reflected in the bottom of my coffee cup this morning, and I got… nothing. No inspiration, no spiritual ding, not a thing. Except these sentences, I guess.

I know I’m not supposed to obsess about spirituality – I know I’m shooting myself in the foot when I do, but it’s hard not to. I want, so badly, to see a sign around every corner. I also know that wanting, so badly, is what’s holding me back. I suffer from spiritual greed I guess.

But that’s okay. I forgive myself for that and, at least today, I will try to continually release that guilt and keep my eyes open. Not every trail leads to water – not every insight leads to awakening.

That being said, I have been thinking about free will lately, and how it relates to fate. If I accept that all the people I see are real and exist just like I do, I have to accept that they have their own free will, just like I do.

The problem is that if they have free will, how can they be karma-puppets in my own little fate play? I mean, if that guy in front of me is going five miles per hour under the limit and I toss off my annoyance as “Oh well, he’s keeping me from getting into that accident up there,” where’s his free will? What is directing him to slow me down? And if nothing is directing him to slow me down, is it really my fate to be behind him, or just bad luck? And how is luck different than fate?

Now I’m pretty sure that if there is a PLAN, it doesn’t care if I’m 30 seconds late for work next Tuesday. It’s a plan for humans after all, and… wait a minute… I was about to give fate a break because I was assuming that humans have free will. Heck, I can’t even say ‘humans’, because if there are intelligent beings in the universe then at some point we will meet them and our fates (or wills) will become intertwined.

My head hurts.

So you tell me. Fate or free will? Or both? Or neither? Have fun.