Below is an excerpt from a Winter's Tale. Something about this, many years ago, caught my attention. I might not agree with everything said, but some of this resonates even now.
‘I
have been to another world, and come back, listen to me’
Nothing is random,
nor will anything ever be, whether a long string of perfectly blue days that
begin and end in golden dimness, the most seemingly chaotic political acts, the
rise of a great city, the chrystalline structure of a gem that has never seen
the light, the distributions of fortune, what time the milkman gets up, the
position of the electron, or the occurrence of one astonishingly frigid winter
after another. Even electrons, supposedly the paragons of unpredictability, are
tame and obsequious little creatures that rush around at the speed of light,
going precisely where they are supposed to go. They make faint whistling sounds
that when apprehended in varying combinations are as pleasant as the wind
flying through a forest, and they do exactly as they are told. Of this, one can
be certain.
And yet
there is a wonderful anarchy, in that the milkman chooses when to arise, the
rat picks a tunnel into which he will dive when the train comes rushing down
the track from afar, and the snowflake will fall as it will. How can this be?
If nothing is random, and everything is predetermined, how can there be free
will? The answer is simple.
Nothing is
predetermined; it is determined, or was determined, or will be determined.
No matter,
it all happened at once, in less than an instant, and time was invented because
we cannot comprehend in one glance the enormous and detailed canvas that we
have been given- so we track it, in linear fashion, piece by piece. Time, however,
can be easily overcome; not by chasing the light, but by standing back far
enough to see it all at once.
The universe
is still and complete. Everything that was, is; everything that ever will be,
is- and so on, in all possible combinations. Though in perceiving it we imagine
it is in motion, and unfinished; it is quite finished, and quite astonishingly
beautiful. In the end, or rather as things really are, any event, no matter how
small, is intimately and sensibly tied to all others. All rivers run full to
the sea; those who are apart are brought together; the lost ones are redeemed;
the dead come back to life; the perfectly blue days that have begun and ended
in golden dimness continue, immobile and accessible; and,
When all is perceived in such a
way as to obviate time, justice
becomes apparent not as
something that will be
but as something that is.
Nothing is Random – Winter’s Tale by Mark
Helprin
