Destiny is the idea that the contingencies of life have purpose for the individual, it is the a key to an intricate lock, which once opened, aligns all the nooks and crannies, and opens the way to an ultimate path of transcending clarity.
Destiny is a moral lesson which people construct out of their own biographies; it is the way people give meaning and significance to the events of their lives which seem strewn across impossibly different realms. It allows people to transcend the immediate successes and failures of certain events, and to attempt to organize these happenings in relation to the entire body of experience. In short, destiny is the idea that life has an overarching purpose, not merely in terms of its material success or wishes fulfilled, but a purpose to convey to the onlooker and, most importantly the self, a story of a moral victory which gives every “chapter” of life significance in relation to its final conclusion.
There is a great peril concerning destiny, a question of ‘when’ the lesson can be extracted from the story. It is the question of whether or not one can make sense of the of the events up until now, or how one deals with life when it seems as if the conclusion has been reached and the remainder of days are a mere between and beyond of an epilogue. It might be troubling for the individual in both cases, but neither diminishes the faith that people hold for a ‘destiny’. Going into it further, we may not be able to dictate the events that happen to us, but we are always the authors of our own biographies in the sense that it is ultimately up to ourselves to adopt or create a moral lesson from our experience. This authorship is fundamental for the writing of a destiny and also fundamental for our own sense of being, it is an invigorating motive for living life, hence making it hard to give up even in the face of absurdity.
The relation between destiny and past events soon becomes tautological, things happen because they are ‘destined’ to, and the moral significance extracted from events soon comes back to construct the narrative in which they are remembered. The relation between destiny and the future becomes the more dynamic relation. On one hand, there is an uncertainty of reconstruction, for it is always possible that one must revise the moral story when facing inexplicable events, such as a natural catastrophe and sudden reversals of fortune. On the other hand, there is a chance for gratifying revelation of what is one’s true destiny; a final success in a string of repetitive failures, a lucky draw at the lottery, a newborn showing infinite dependency, such are the moments when failures are turned to mere hardships on the road to greater meaning.
What makes individuals interesting is their ways of constructing their destiny. Some cannot bear the idea of loose strings and stray alleyways; they must make meaning of everything at hand at all times. Some are forever looking forward future revelations, forgoing their own conduct and the probabilities of change, always remaining faithful in their own conviction that a vindication will come. While most of us accept the fact that some events have come to be through pure chance, that they could have held different content, even lesser meaning, while holding other events as defining moments in the our tale of morality.
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Contemplating on the concept further, i've realized how much my ideas on the subject pinge on a particular sense of 'authorship' that might not have existed in other historical eras. Their was no use of the word 'author' in medival Europe, for all works were attributed to the glory of god working through the hands of us, the sinners. It was Machiavelli that told us to reach for the other half of glory which rightly belonged to ourselves, against the other tides fortune. The mediator of the self between Destiny and the Events to be expalined may not have been a recognized actor. My ideas are probably a reflection of the multitude of oppurtunities and the vacancy of any dominant ways of life in modern life.
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