From Essays After Montaigne
The inconstancie of Fortunes diverse wavering is the cause shee should present us with all sorts of visages. Is there any action of justice more manifest than this?... Fortune hath better advice than wee...Fortune in her directions exceedeth all the rules of humane wisdome.
In a reply to my overly academic dithering over my inability to commit to a belief, The Raven suggests that:
Laughing in the face of absurdity, a la the satori gang, always struck me as a viable response...
That comment struck me, not because I have chosen that response, but because until recently, I acted as if I had. As a young adult, I made many weighty decisions--from which college and graduate school to attend to which jobs and careers to pursue--with less deliberation than many people dedicate to choosing dinner. Irrationally, I believed that I was just that smart--that I could reason through such decisions so quickly and clearly--a belief reinforced by those decisions working out so well. More rationally, I justified my decision-making process by claiming the influence of chance would exceed that of whatever wisdom I could bring to bear on the matter anyway--time spent trying to anticipate what was likely to happen was wasted.
Having lived a little longer, I've had the chance to see the consequences of decisions that were not made carefully enough (or to recognize such consequences where they had always been). And I've made enough life decisions that some of them have turned out to have been wrong. I'm now inclined to take more care when making decisions and, more important, to seek input and advice from others, especially my wife. It's not that I feel any more capable of mastering chance--I just feel a greater responsibility to at least try. Time spent attempting to account for chance isn't wasted.
7:52:26 AM 
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