And I mean that in the most mathematical of terms. We... are random. You know how sometimes when you flip a coin a bunch of times it starts off all heads, heads, heads, heads... and you think it's fixed or weighted or something? But then, if you keep flipping it, tails show up every once in a while- or there'll be a long run of tails after that? And you keep flipping and you see that, over time, when you count up all the heads and all the tails it still comes out 50/50?
I think we're like that too. Actually, I'm pretty sure we are; mostly because we are natural beings and, as such, are part of this natural universe and, as such, are just as much a part of the random nature of nature as everyone else is (everyone else being the laws of probability and physics and weather and animals and life and death etc.).
But I think, that because we're actually living this coin toss experiment, I think that because we're in it, we kind of only see the short- term part of the experiment: the all heads in a row, or occasional tails. And I think, we start to use this experience of seeing one pattern or another to believe that there might be a pattern to us, a predicatability to us, an order to us. And, depending on the flip, this idea of a stable or predictable aspect of our future, can either bring us great comfort, or great despair.
But in reality, in the big picture of this all, our behaviors, our personalities, our experiences, our existence I think is pretty much just as random as the coin toss: maybe it will end up 50/ 50 but in the mean time, there's gonna be a bunch of heads and maybe a little tail here and there but all those heads in a row don't actually mean that there's gonna be a bunch of tails in a row after that or the scarcity of tails doesn't mean there isn't going to be a whole mess of tails in the future. Our existence is actually random. As little as I'd like to accept it, I think my experiences are pretty much random.
I'm not saying that I have no agency in this, I'm not saying I have no control over how I live. To me, that's a completely separate issue. What I'm talking about is our expectation (or at least my expectation) that we make sense, that there is an order to us, that who we are or how we act or even how others interact with us follows some logic or pattern or order. I think I want it to, but I think I have to accept that it may not always. I think that when things come up that surprise me, that aren't according to plan, that don't fit with what I thought that person would do, I just need to say "Oh yeah, there it is, there's that random tail in the run of heads. It's not bad, it's not cause for alarm, it's not time for intervention or mid-life crisis, it just is. It's the universe, I'm a part of it, we're all pretty random. But also, in the big big picture of all of this, it's all gonna come out 50/ 50 anyway, I just may not see it because I'm in it.
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