#oneaday Day 545: Tempting Fate

I don’t believe in any particular religion, as I believe most of them are, to paraphrase Eddie Izzard says, philosophies with some good ideas and some fucking batshit crazy ones. As such, I have no interest in some omnipresent, omniscient god figure knowing when I’m sleeping and when I’m awake (unless he’s Santa Claus, in which case he should come on down and bring presents) — but I do have an idle belief in the concept of Fate. That is, the idea that certain things happen for a “reason”, whatever that might be. Said reason might not be anything big or huge — or it may not become clear until much, much later — but there’s usually a reason for the seemingly random shit that goes on.

At least, it’s nice to believe that when everything goes wrong. As I’ve repeatedly mentioned, last year was Bad. Thinking that everything going disastrously wrong and me hitting rock bottom had some sort of Grand Purpose made it mildly easier to deal with.

That said, I’m not sure I believe in Fate quite so much as to think that you can tempt it. Consequently, I present to you a probably-not-comprehensive list of Bad Things That Have Never Happened To Me, and I shall report back next week if any of them Do Happen To Me. (If they don’t, I’ll probably forget this post ever existed.)

I have never had an illness so serious it required hospitalisation.
Or an operation.
I’ve never broken a limb, either. (Though I did sprain my ankle once. That fucking hurt.)
As a result, I’ve never been under the influence of anaesthetic, local or general. (Unless I just don’t remember.)
I’ve never been in a fight. (Obviously I’m counting from my adult life here, otherwise we’d have to take the time I punched one of the school bullies in the face right in front of the headmaster into account, and as awesome as that was, it clearly doesn’t count.)
I’ve never shat myself. (Ditto, only without the bit about the school bully.)
Or pissed myself. (As above.)
Or been sick into/onto somewhere/someone that it is not appropriate to be sick into/onto. (Dustbins totally count as appropriate vomit receptacles, incidentally.)
I’ve never been fired. (I quit the job in which I was suffering workplace bullying before that would have become a possibility.)
I’ve never been in a car accident. (There was one time I was in my mum’s car and we bumped into another car head-on (it was their fault, nested brackets ftw) at approximately 15mph, but like the school bully incident, this doesn’t count.)
I’ve never been in any kind of transport accident.
I’ve never seen a horrifically injured or disfigured person.
Or a dead body.
I’ve never been injured by another person, deliberately or accidentally.
Or killed.
And I’ve never killed or injured anyone either, apart from one time I whacked someone in the balls not very hard with a LARPing sword, but he was kind of asking for it, and it was an accident anyway.
I’ve never had anything stuck up my arse that wasn’t supposed to be there.
I’ve never had a sexual-related injury…
…or disease.
I’ve never run over a wild animal or bird.
Or a child.
Or a fully-grown person.
I’ve never been a victim of a crime. (I may have had my wallet stolen once, or I may have just left it on the bus. Either way, First Southampton couldn’t find it.)
I have never dropped my phone down a toilet. (I dropped a pen down there once, and a flannel, but nothing else.)
I have never been abducted by aliens.
I have never witnessed a zombie apocalypse.
I have never witnessed the end of the world.
I have never been struck down by an angry god who is furious at my lack of belief in Him yet strong belief in a concept as amorphous as “Fate”.
Okay, we’re getting silly now. Enough. If I’m dead next week, please read out this post at my funeral and add the line “He went up against Fate, and lost,” or something similar. Or just make up something cool and say I said it.

#oneaday Day 86: Defiant Destiny

If you’ve read any fantasy (or, to a lesser extent, science fiction) novels or played any RPGs (pen and paper or computer-based) you’ll be familiar with the concept of “Fate” or “Destiny”, whatever you want to call it. The idea that everything that happens is part of a string of events that are “supposed” to happen, things that are planned out, destined to come to pass with an eventual goal which isn’t necessarily completely clear.

It’s a spiritual, quasi-religious sort of concept, I guess, but despite not being a religious type in the slightest, I’m a bit of a believer in the idea.

Or perhaps it’s not Fate or Destiny. Perhaps it’s simply the fact that everyone makes choices in their lives, and those choices have consequences that can continue to affect things months, even years, down the line. Not only that, but one person’s choices can affect the lives of other people and the choices they make too. Without one simple little thing happening, things might be entirely different.

Take something as seemingly inconsequential as, say, joining Twitter. Without joining Twitter on whenever-it-was (a piece of information that I’m sure used to be easier to find out) there’s a ton of things that would never have happened. It’s entirely possible that the Squadron of Shame SquadCast wouldn’t have happened and that the small but tight-knit community that has grown around that over at the Squawkbox wouldn’t be what it is today. Without that happening, I might not have been spurred on to quit my job and try and “make it” writing—something which yes, I’m aware I still have some way to go on, but it is at least considerably further along than it once was. Without that happening, many of the events of the last year might not have happened, for better or worse. I might not have met a number of awesome people who have become very important to me (in very different ways to each other, I might add). And I might not be sitting here now wondering what the future holds in a positive, forward-looking manner rather than dreading it.

Of course, some may point out that some of the events in that sequence of things indirectly led to bad things happening, which means that without my joining Twitter in the first place I might be sitting in a very different place right now in an alternate timeline. But then that’s where the question of “Fate” or “Destiny” comes in. Perhaps that’s one key event that was “supposed” to happen in order to make all that other stuff come to pass. And even the bad stuff, in that case, happened for a reason to lead me on towards some sort of eventual future awesomeness that hasn’t quite happened yet but feels like it’s finally starting to get there.

You can really over-think things if you’re not careful. Live in the moment. Do what seems right. Tackle the consequences as they come. Life will throw you challenges and big, steaming lumps of shit along the way, but at some point, eventually, you’ll find yourself on the pathway to something that’s “right”, something where your eventual goal is clear, if far away.

Am I on that pathway yet? Couldn’t say. But I know that for the first time in a long while, I’m looking forward to finding out.

#oneaday, Day 273: Roots

“And so it is said,” quoth the ancient texts that I’ve just made up in my head, “that the Place in which a Man shall lay his Roots is not chosen by the Man, but rather the Place.”

And so it was that this weekend I found myself back in the vicinity of Southampton, the City of Lost Dreams. The circumstances under which I was back in said city (or specifically, the adjacent town of Beastleigh Eastleigh) are not the subject of today’s post; rather, the curious twists of fate that lead someone to return to the same place time and time again are.

My original choice to go to Southampton was based almost entirely on the university campus. The lush greenery, the pleasantly rolling hills of the campus grounds, the pleasant water features—all of these things combined to make me think that “yes, this is the place I’d like to be”. That and the fact that it was one of very few places in the whole country running the English and Music course that I was interested in studying. Incidentally, if you’re about to go to university and you are currently justifying your choice of degree subject by saying “it’s a good general qualification, good for anything, really” then just stop, punch yourself in the face and go and pick something specialist that leads directly into a career you’re interested in. Seriously. It will save you a lot of annoyance a few years down the road.

I studied in Southampton and successfully completed my degree, despite a few early-morning lectures ditched in favour of trips to the campus coffee shop, and one piano workshop which I had to leave in favour of being a bit sick in the Turner Sims concert hall’s toilets. I decided that I liked it there for various reasons, so I took on a teacher training course primarily as a means of staying in Southampton, and also as a means of getting a career appropriate to my skillset. Once that was over and done with, I moved to Winchester, which is a much smaller, nicer and more expensive town than Southampton. But my heart was still in the city of WestQuay.

I spent two years in Winchester, living in The Nicest Flat In The World for the first year and A House That Would Be Quite Nice Were It Not So Mouldy And Smelling Of Gas in the second. Following this, I moved to Aldershot to be closer to my job. I then quit said job and moved back to Southampton into another Flat That Would Be Quite Nice Were It Not So Mouldy But Not Smelling Of Gas This Time because I had a job in, yes, Southampton. Tired of mould, I moved into the place in the city centre that was to become the final resting place of my hopes and dreams for my life that was. During all that time, even when I hadn’t lived in the city itself, it felt like “base camp”, home. A place to be centred. This was partly (or probably mostly) to do with the people who were there—people who were and still are important to me.

Leaving the city behind was tough, as was probably apparent from the blog posts around that period. It was so tough, in fact, that it took nearly all day to say goodbye to four people. In fact, it did take all day, and my overburdened car was not on its way up the M3 until the sun had long since dipped over the horizon.

Now, circumstances, Fate, whatever you want to call it; something has intervened and is dragging me back there. I’m not complaining (except at the cost of petrol or train tickets, both of which are extortionate) but I do get something of a wry grin on my face when I think of the city (and, by extension, its surrounding smaller towns and cities like Eastleigh and Winchester). It’s like a stubborn child that won’t quit until it gets what it wants, tugging on my metaphorical coat sleeves to attract my attention and pointing, oh look, over there, there’s a badger with a gun, can you see? Wouldn’t it be awesome if that was in your back garden?

So what will happen in the long term? I couldn’t honestly say. A lot will depend on the job situation, which still isn’t resolved yet. But let’s just say that there’s something of a quasi-gravitational pull in a south-westerly direction. It may be hard to resist that call for long.

#oneaday, Day 155: Waiting for the Awesome

A thought occurred to me in conversation with a friend today. It concerns the structure of one’s life, and how all our lives seem to be a sequence of “big events” with long stretches of abject tedium and/or unpleasantness in between. Abject tedium sometimes isn’t a bad thing; it helps us appreciate the exciting things in life, after all. But the unpleasantness? That I can live without.

These “big events” are what everything always leads towards. And it’s the waiting for them that gets so damn frustrating. Right now, I confidently predict that my next “big event” will be getting a job. This will be closely followed by moving to somewhere I can actually afford that is near aforementioned job. This will be followed by starting said job. From there? Who knows.

There’s also an alternative route, of course. Fail to get job. Run out of money. Get kicked out of house. Turn to life of crime and eating rats. Die in a gutter outside Greggs after being stabbed for small change by someone with more street smarts.

I’m hoping the “alternative route” won’t happen. But it’s a genuine concern, I won’t lie.

It’s these “big events” that define who we are, though. Whether they’re positive or negative has a huge impact on how we feel. My last “big event” was a very negative one and as such I’m still reeling from the effects now. But I’m hoping that’s a signal that the next “big event” will be a good one. And it will be onwards and upwards from there. It’s not an unreasonable assumption, I don’t think, because when you hit rock bottom there’s not many other places you can go besides upwards. And I have been at least taking positive steps to try and kickstart that motion, even if the whole thing is ultimately completely out of my control and will only happen when the great Playhead of Life flicks over into the next bar. Mixing metaphors, I know. But… oh, just shut up.

Despite not being a religious man (despite my primary school’s best efforts) I actually have quite a belief in the power of “fate”, or “Fate” with a capital F if you really want. Some things are supposed to happen. Other things are not supposed to happen. “Fate” is just the sequence of those “big events” happening one after another, leading to an eventual conclusion somewhere. Sometimes we get to make a decision, and “Fate” takes a different path. But sometimes, more often than not, we have to follow the path that’s been set for us. We’re all playing a game of Heavy Rain, in essence. We may take different paths to get to our destination, and sometimes our paths have different consequences, but there’s no cheating the basic storyline of Fate. There’s a beginning. And there’s an end.

It may be something of a cop-out to attribute all the stuff in between the beginning and the end to Fate. And perhaps it’s not. Perhaps we do have more free will than that. But right now, while sitting here waiting and waiting for something wonderful to happen as a result of all the many, many efforts I’ve made to try and force something wonderful to happen? I’m running out of ideas. So if anyone “upstairs” has a grand plan, would they kindly hurry up and get on with it, please?