A Quote by Barry N. Malzberg
"Events," I say to the Captain, "events control our lives, although we have no understanding of them nor do they have any motivation. Everything is blind chance, happenstance, occurrence; in an infinite universe anything can happen. After the fact we find reasons.
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It is so important to remember that, as we travel through life, there will be so many events which we can`t control. These are things that seemingly alter our lives forever or become barriers for living a life of fulfillment. It`s important to remember that the ultimate experience of life is not to be controlled by events. We all have difficult events in our lives - the loss of family members, economics, stress, litigation, government interference in our businesses, health challenges. Remember that it is not the events that shape our lives, but, rather, the meaning we attach to them.
The powers that be not only try to control events,
but they try to control our memory and understanding of these events, which is part of controlling the events themselves.
Our lives are structured by our memories of events. Event X happened just before the big Paris vacation. I was doing Y in the first summer after I learned to drive. Z happened the weekend after I landed my first job. We remember events by positioning them in time relative to other events.
Not only is the Universe aware of us, but it also communicates with us. We, in turn, are constantly in communication with the Universe through our words, thoughts, and actions. The Universe responds with events. Events are the language of the Universe. The most obvious of those events are what we call coincidence.
The greatest events occur without intention playing any part in them; chance makes good mistakes and undoes the most carefully planned undertaking. The world's greatest events are not produced, they happen.
The sad events that occur in my life are the sad events that happen to everybody, with losing friends and family, but that is a natural occurrence, as natural as being born.
Those of us who obsess over every word and action are constantly recalling past events, but that doesn't make them any less painful, nor does it help us transcend them. To write memoir, you have to not only recollect past events, you have to revisit them. You have to get back to the mental and emotional state you were in during those events.
Many people believe that decentralization means loss of control. That's simply not true. You can improve control if you look at control as the control of events and not people. Then, the more people you have controlling events - the more people you have that care about controlling the events, the more people you have proactively working to create favorable events - the more control you have within the organization, by definition.
Sometimes events that lead us bereft of anything but grief just happen for no reason other than happenstance--a car turns left instead of right, a train is missed, a call comes too late--and the real test of our humanness is whether, in light of that knowledge, we are ever able to recover. When we again find our way despite the inability to manufacture a deeper meaning in our suffering, that I think is when God smiles upon us, proud of the strength of his creation.
Don't demand or expect that events happen as you would wish them do. Accept events as they actually happen. That way, peace is possible.
We may not be able to create or control all of the events that impact our lives but we can create and control our responses to everything that we experience.
Surreal fiction is a sophisticated art form. Events happen divorced from conventional logic, as events in a dream may happen. But unlike dreams, everything in the story contributes to an overall coherent point, impression or emotion.
News has a way of distancing us from events, even as it informs us about them. News articles almost always present both the event and the responses at the same time - how is President Barack Obama or Congress responding to the events? I think this reflects a deep need we have to feel that things are under control and that events are subject to our influence.
The events in our lives happen in a sequence in time, but in their significance to ourselves they find their own order the continuous thread of revelation.
You see, it's never the environment; it's never the events of our lives, but the meaning we attach to the events - how we interpret them - that shapes who we are today and who we'll become tomorrow.
Not that chance dominated events in the early Solar System, for scientific determinism was also functioning. But chance is an essential factor in all evolutionary events, and the birth and development of our planetary system were not exceptions.
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