Tuesday 9 August 2011

Is this what it takes?

Hello universe, I'm back (just for a short time, I'm sure).  I'm a bit bemused by some things that happened here on Monday... I lost two friends and I just can't begin to comprehend how something like this could happen here in Australia, where we don't normally get text messages at 7.00pm on a cold Monday night telling us friends are dead, in terrible circumstances.


Anybody got any answers?  I've never been a believer in that old saw "everything happens for a reason", because, yanno, we never get to know the reason.  We just have to take it on faith that my friends died for some higher purpose.  Not seeing it, you know?


I don't believe that there's any such thing as fate, either.  You get given a life, and you make the best of it.  Yes, some of us get given better starts than others, but it's yours, you own it, you drive it.  You can piss it all up against a wall, or you can start from nothing and build yourself a big shiny wall.  You choose.  


Some choices are good, that's a given.    You check the traffic before you step out.  You take your library books back, you stick to the speed limit.  You stop going drinking all night when you hit 30.  You take responsibility for your reproductive health.  You learn, you grow.  And yet, here you are, on a Monday night, dead.  That's not a choice you made, I'm sure.  So there are definitely limits to how are this whole 'determinism' thing goes, especially when you share your life with another person, because suddenly the capacity for making smart decisions is halved, not doubled.


Good advice welcome.