destiny

Re: destiny


Declaring that each person has a purpose in the world would be declaring that there is some ultimate power with a plan for the world. That or that the world is a sentient being which is silly. We are, we do, there is no big mystery to it IMO.

Nope, no destiny at all for anyone ever.

Or if there is, then everthing about everyone who ever was or will be MUST be predetermined.

Welcome to A2K.

i had to vote yes to the poll but it requires clarification.

The destiny i believe in is self-ordained and changeable.

Prior to our incarnation we decide what probabilities we want to occur in our lives. We have our own motivation for making those choices.

During our life we are subconsciously guided by those choices of probabilities that we ordained but we can consciously overrule our subconscious suggestions.

Re: destiny


Absolutely.

I'm with Hephzibah. I believe we all have a destiny to fulfill. It's within our capability to do it.

Or destroy it.

True, but as long as you have breath in your body, you can still control your destiny.

Assuming "destiny" is meaningful for the moment why draw the line at humans ? Does ALL LIFE have "a purpose" ? Is "cognition" a requirement ?

The point is that "time" itself is a cognitive construct perceived differently by different cultures.
But the concept of destiny is predicated on "time" as being axiomatic. The implication is that "destiny" is a psychological projection whose function is to allay our fears that Shakespeare may have been correct when he described life as " a tale told by an idiot - full of sound and fury and signifying nothing".

wow fresco... I fail to see how time is relative here. Sorry.

Hep, trying to imagine destiny without time is like trying to imagine who is the fastest runner over a distance of 0 miles.

Well... of course I would be the fastest runner...

Well in my own imagination....

Who decides what time is?

I've had this feeling, deep down in my gut, that I am destined to rule the world.

Milk of Magnesia will knock that right out.

hephzibah

Eorl is correct in his racing analogy. Howeve, if you prefer a more spiritual opinion you might try Krishnamurti who talks both about "psychological time" and also "freedom from becoming".

"Becoming is strife ...Life as we know it, our daily life, is a process of becoming. I am poor and I act with an end in view, which is to become rich. I am ugly and I want to become beautiful. Therefore my life is a process of becoming something. The will to be is the will to become, at different levels of consciousness, in different states, in which there is challenge, response, naming and recording. Now, this becoming is strife, this becoming is pain, it is not? It is a constant struggle: I am this, and I want to become that."

"Becoming" is inevitable.

Destiny is only discernible in hindsight, after the fact. A more accurate term for it would be rationalization.

Just my opinion. Or perhaps my destiny.....

fresco, couple of times in my life I've become what I wanted to (at the time).

I wouldn't wish it on anyone....it's like, "Well....now what....?"

Greyfan, from where I'm sitting, seems it's your destiny to be the fastest dog on the planet.

Eorl,

"I wouldn't wish it on anyone....it's like, "Well....now what....?"

In meditational terms this is the point from where the concept of "self" is questioned. There is a good description of this in Hesse's "Siddhartha".

http://www.online-literature.com/hesse/siddhartha/

I agree with Spenius that "becoming is inevitable." But the problem discussed here depends on how we define our terms. To always want to be something else or somewhere else, to get some kind of ideal to replace the presently real is, as Fresco suggests (from Krishnamurti), a source of suffering. Nevertheless, to put it another way, the Buddha (with Nietzsche and Heraclitis), all is or is in the process of becoming something else. Our attempt to "fix" the present--to turn becoming (process) into "being" (fixed situations or things) is the attempt to "grasp" (signifying a process of "attachment" to unreal) merely mentally abstract (platonic) fictions.
Back to "destiny". (agreeing with Greyfan) I've felt that when looking back in time, determinism applies; looking forward into the future, free-will applies (just my perceptions). In this sense my present situation is the result of destiny. It is the inevitable consequence of past (forgetting about the problematics of "time") events, everywhere in the Cosmos--"inevitable" because it IS the way things DID turn out. I feel that EVERYTHING has conspired to produce the present general (including "my" particular) condition. Regarding the future, however, I am in the process of contributing, through creative acts and choosing between perceived "options", to my future destiny.
I do agree with Nietzsche that is a very high spiritual state of mind to accept, indeed to love, one's destiny with all its pains and pleasures: AMOR FATI.
It reminds me of Jesus' "Thy will be done...."