Fulfill Your Destiny Or Suffer Your Fate

Are you a fan of Led Zeppelin? I am. I don’t know all their songs inside and out, but I’ve always loved their sound. And, they’re truly one of the great rock bands of all time. But the downside of being as famous as they are is that society becomes “parent deaf” to their messages. Their wisdom and brilliance becomes hidden in plain sight after years, decades now, of repetition.

So, let’s take my favorite line from Stairway to Heaven, a song so famous that many guitar stores unironically prohibit you from practicing it while trying out gear:

“There are two roads that you can go by, but in the long run/you’ve still got time to change the road you’re on.”

Simple, yet, in many ways, profound: ultimately you will go one of two ways in this life, but it’s not too late to make a change.

I believe that, deep down, we all know this to be true. We all know that there’s a right way, and a wrong way. And, for us to live good lives, we have to know that the way we’re going is right.

Let’s call the right way “the path of destiny” and the wrong way “the path of fate.” As I say in the title of this week’s article, “fulfill your destiny, or suffer your fate.”

Today, I’m going to spend a little time clarifying that statement. Mostly, I want to give an exposition on “the mentality of reclaiming.” It’s one thing to know right from wrong, destiny from fate, but it’s another to really understand how to change from wrong to right. How to recognize the longing for that kind of change, and what the beginnings of that change look and feel like.

So, why do I use the word “reclaim?” Because the good life is about more than just progress. It’s about more than just moving forward, expanding, evolving, taking on more, doing more, becoming something more. To be clear, that is part of it. But, not all of it.

The good life is often framed as a process of expanding one’s territory to encompass new, better land, so to speak. A land filled with more money, better possessions, more influence, better friends, more control over your time, better things to spend your time on.

And, this is not wrong. The positive changes in my life can certainly be described, accurately, in these terms. But as I’ve said, there’s more to it. And, I’ll show you why there has to be something deeper and something different for the external improvements to come to pass in a meaningful and lasting way.

This “something deeper” is about the reclamation of what is inherently good in you. The reclamation of your dignity, and, dare I say, your nobility.

What I am fundamentally saying, and I will say it now as bluntly as possible, is that

You already had the thing that mattered, and you misplaced it. There’s nothing new for you to go and get that could possibly be better, or more valuable, or more useful, more rewarding, more special and meaningful, than what you came into this life holding, and which you now cannot find.

Do you feel deep existential dread as you read that? If so, good. Feel it, see it, claim it, own it. And, I will teach you to use it for good.

What is it that you already had when you got here?

Your purity and innocence. Your inherent goodness, virtue, dignity and nobility.

There was a time when your joy was total and irrepressible, when you delighted in exploration and discovery, when it was fun to be challenged, fun to engage fully, fun to be daring and imaginative and expressive. It was effortless to say what you really thought, effortless to be yourself. You knew what you wanted, and pursued it. This is what is meant by “purity and innocence.”

This is, of course, something that is experienced in early childhood and quickly fades away. Society is organized in such a way that it turns us into adults who seek status, stability, approval, conformity, and success on terms laid out by others. We learn that we cannot simply say and do whatever we want. Little by little, we are saddled with responsibilities, pressures, and expectations.

Essentially, we become adults at the expense of the children we used to be. This is everyone’s fate, and no one’s destiny.

“There are two roads that you can go by, but in the long run,
You’ve still got time to change the road you’re on.”

Now stay with me, and dip back into that feeling of existential dread. The dread of seeing that life is passing you by, the dread of wasted time, of “too late,” the dread of ultimate failure. Feel it, hold it, own it.

How do you know? How do you know which path you’re on?

The short answer is that, if you’re not sure which one you’re on, you’re suffering your fate. Everyone who walks the path of destiny knows that they are doing so.

Because destiny is the reward of agency,
The reward of honoring your conscience,
The reward of living wilfully,
The reward of using your strength and power to take back what was yours all along, that you yourself misplaced as the result of your own ignorance.

The path of destiny is illuminated by the light of a fire lit within yourself.

And, I say “fire” because there is something like anger in it. It is the anger of Dylan Thomas’s famous injunction to “rage against the dying of the light.”

It is the jolting awake of someone who suddenly sees that time is limited, that it is running out, and that now is the time to become good, whole, happy, sane, wise, and in control of one’s life.

It is the anger of someone who realizes he’s fallen asleep on the train, missed the stop, and is now far from home, far off track, and who’s entire organism has now quickly and decisively organized around the necessary corrective measures.

This is the initial shock that sets the rest in motion. It isn’t all about the angered jolt, but it has to start there.

It has to start with a full throated, defiant “NO” to the sleepwalking episodic torpor of mediocrity.

If you honor that anger, it will set you on the path, and then the anger will leave you. It is that deep terrifying existential dread that wants, desperately, to flare up into the “rage against the dying of the light.”

Do it. Use it.

Friedrich Nietzsche wrote that “the struggle of maturity is to regain the seriousness of a child at play.”

Someone who has learned the impulse control of an adult, has spent his or her adult life learning and refining skills, who can function in society, and bear the burden of responsibilities, is unstoppable when reunited with the childlike spirit of wonder, play, discovery, and vigorous activity.

I spoke of innocence and purity. I did not speak idly.

The child at play knows right from wrong, honesty from dishonesty, beauty from ugliness, desirable from undesirable. A child knows how to give and receive love and forgiveness. And, a child takes its conscience seriously.

When you reclaim that part of yourself, your purity and your innocence are returned to you.

This is the prize. The rest, everything good that flows therefrom, is to be shared with others. Only you are truly yours.

Thank you for your time, talk to you soon.

Jas