What is fate? The dictionary will tell us something like this;
“The
universal principle or ultimate agency by which the order of things is presumably prescribed; the decreed cause of events; time:”
Which is all a bit dry because defining
something that is an ephemeral concept is by its own definition, difficult. I
have long thought intellectually about the coincidences of meeting people, or more
accurately seeing people, especially if this meeting is transitory and
unfulfilled. I’m a keen people watcher, not in some sinister voyeuristic way,
but as an observer of human activity. Train stations are a fabulous place to
observe human activity of all kinds; they are a wonderful kaleidoscope of
chaotic human coincidence.
All these people rushing about have lives,
lives which are linked to and separated from others by a degree of separation, a theory which states that everyone is on average approximately six
steps away, by way of introduction, from any other person on Earth, which is an
astonishing concept in itself.
In a way I was part of this theory in 2006 when I travelled by train to
Italy to visit friends. Entombed and hopelessly lost in the Paris Metro system
I walked past a woman who was similarly lost and unable to make herself
understood to an uncommunicative member of Parisian staff. She and I joined
forces to extricate ourselves and find our own way to the Gare de Bercy station
where the overnight trains to Italy depart. It turned out she was an opera singer from the
Netherlands en-route to Venice for a job interview. Normally she flew, but that
day there was a Europe-wide Air Traffic Controllers strike, so like me she
travelled overland. As we waited for the train she suggested she purchase some
food for us for the journey, which she did, returning just moments before our separate
trains were due to depart. In haste we said our goodbyes, bordered our overnight
trains and I never saw her again. But like many people I have fleetingly met
over the years I often think about her and whether she got the job. I never did
know her name but for a few minutes our lives collided and we shared an experience
together.
Films and books have long discussed such thoughts. Charles Dickens’s A
Christmas Carol is of course a well known example of looking into the
future. If Ebenezer Scrooge follows this or that path as outlined by his visiting
ghost, his future will be redefined for good or bad. The romantic film Sliding
Doors starring Gwyneth Paltrow and John Hannah is another well known exploration
of this concept of “what if’s”. Missing her train on the London Underground,
Gwyneth Paltrow’s character then embarks on a parallel universe plot, outlining
what may have happened if she had caught her train, and what happened if she
didn’t. And of course the poet Robert Frost’s poem The Road Less Travelled
details the routes we take in life and their consequences.
In reality every action we take has a parallel plot to enact should we
choose it. How many times have we heard stories of people who missed their
connections to a plane or ship only for some disaster to befall it and all
hands are lost or killed? The survivors’ stories are often a powerful example
of fate. Many say fate is something we have absolutely no control over, as it
is something that supernatural forces direct. But is that true? As intellectual
human beings, can we not bend fate to our own will? Intellectual minds far
greater than mine will theorise over this forever.
But what really interests me is what I prefer to call the ephemeral side of
coincidence, where no actual contact is made but for a brief moment in time
there is connectivity. This was something I noticed yesterday whilst driving. I
noticed a group of four men on a Welsh golf course. They were on the green, one
was putting, one held the flag, two others stood with their putters in hand
watching. In our car, myself and Julie and for what can only have been a couple
of seconds I watched the first man putting as I drove past. Those four men
would probably have known each other. Friends maybe, or colleagues away from
the office for a day. The round of golf would have been planned maybe a day or
so before and in the morning they would all have left their individual
houses to meet up for their leisurely game.
That same morning Julie and I set off from Somerset on our visit to Wales. At around
12 noon our 2 sets of lives which had been separate until yesterday collided in
time and space, for the briefest of moments, before separating again for
eternity. Today we are all back in our own world, leading our own lives; but for
me the memory will linger.
Intent on their game, the golfers would be unaware I had seen them and
carried on with their game as Julie and I carried on with our day. Writing
about them now in a way could possibly break the unconnected side of this
encounter. Maybe one of the golfers will read this blog in years to come and
think “was that me he wrote about?” “I remember seeing a black Renault Clio as
I held the flag”. I probably think about such things too much, but I do find
them intellectually fascinating.
From the cradle to the grave, all of our lives are made up of connections.
I am fortunate in that a fair few of my school friends I keep in touch with.
But from Agricultural College I have as little an idea of where those students
I spent every waking day with are, as I have those Welsh golfers from
yesterday. Social media such as Twitter broadens our connections with the wider
world, but does it? We tap tap tap into a keyboard, and read a reply. Are we
really connecting or does that only happen when we emerge from cyberspace and
meet in person? But we should remember, as Robert Frost said of the road ahead;
“I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
And that has made all the difference.”
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