Life is strange.
Everything that happens to each person seems to happen by chance. You fall down on the sidewalk--there’s a chance you’ll skin your knee and there’s a chance you’ll get up, unharmed. No matter how much you plan, all in hopes that your preparation turns the situation in the direct you want, there’s always that chance that it won’t go your way.
People turn chance into “God’s Will” or “the plan” of some higher being. Why is that? I’m in the opinion that people are weak and tend to need strength and “truth” from someone or something greater than themselves. Some pull comfort from their spiritual guide when they can’t find it in anything else. Others need answers for situations they don’t understand, so they pray, meditate, etc., with the idea that these actions will deliver answers from above.
In reality, the only deliverance any one person can experience comes from within oneself. When looking for answers, we look within. It’s the morals, beliefs, and past experiences that create the solutions we’re hoping to find. God doesn’t give out answers like Halloween Trick-or-Treat candy; if you believe in Him, then you’re probably of the mind that He gives you the tools to find His answer in your heart. To me, and to those who think like myself, God gives you nothing (I’m an atheist, which makes the reasoning for that self-explanatory)--you find your answers by knowing yourself (refer to the third sentence of this paragraph).
“Truth” is open to interpretation. Just as the opinions of people differ from one person to another, truth becomes stretched, strained, and distorted by the ways humans see it. Osama Bin Laden told (tells) his followers that great things will meet them in the afterlife if they fight against the evil American Empire. His followers accepted this as true because Bin Laden cited the Koran, saying that it approved of such activity. He knew that those followers were poor and uneducated. The only education they received came from knowing the Koran and practicing the Muslim religion. If the one thing they know best says that it’s okay to be violent towards another country, then they’ll be gung-ho to be Bin Laden’s agents of terror.
Here in the United States, citizens accept the truth in the form of making opinions for themselves and having the freedom to think and express their beliefs as they see fit (as long as those expressions abide by US laws). Most Americans would say they’re smarter and more aware of worldly views and concerns. They only believe that because it’s what’s been fed to them as the truth.
September 11th, the Iraqi war, and all the news feeds which reported the reactions of people around the globe shattered the American illusion of truth.
Never has there been such American backlash reported on the nightly news and local papers as there’s been since September 11th. Gone are the days that proudly proclaimed how loved Americans were by the people of all nations. Our own ignorance slapped us in the face as we watched people jumping from the World Trade Center and as each tower abided by the laws of gravity and tumbled down to the ground; as Dan Rather recounted the unveiling of real American love, over and over again. Our ignorance, some of it at least, fell as the WTC towers crashed down--all was exposed. The slap Bin Laden delivered stung, and not only from his actions, but also from our lack of knowledge.
As I’ve said, truth is open to interpretation. Some Americans think that we deserved the terrorist attacks, simply because America is full of corruption, greed, and indifference to the needs of the rest of the world’s population. Those people are radicals with a few valid points, but have warped versions of truth. There are Americans who see September 11th as an act of God. I believe those people are weak. They need strength, guidance, and real answers to such a surreal event. Looking for those things in God helps those people, since doing so gives them a shoulder to lean on. And then there are those who are like me--they wonder about 9-11, examine the information that’s been given, and try to develop their own brand of truth.
Chance encounters help the development of truth. Life's experiences mold individual beliefs. Having said that, what would I do if I were able to go back to that day, with the chance to trade the exposed American ignorance for the lives of 9-11 victims?
The complete and honest truth is that I wouldn’t change anything about the situation. It is sad that many people died, but I have to wonder how many of them didn’t deserve death. In reality, once you’ve thought about it, death comes to everyone, so what difference does it make if it’s now, tomorrow, or sixty years from today? Though the victims would’ve had some influence on their families and friends, I cannot see that point of sparing their lives. Before September 11th, I never realized just how offensive others interpret US citizens. Though I knew there were those who hated us, it never sank in how deep their hatred was. Now I know, and that makes a difference. The truth that once was blinded by ignorance was brought out. Never would I trade that truth for the victims lives, as hard as that may be to believe.
Life in itself is a chance. You might make it, succeed and live up to your dreams as we all hope to do. Then again, you might not. How you decide to live your life depends on your morals, which are closely modeled after your personal truths. The ways you look and examine the world, as well as how far you will dig for meaning, depends on everything that you hold true. Like a building, life’s experiences, meaning, and worth, are piled on top of one another, intertwined to create a stable base.
You are the stable base, even through those times of instability. Look toward the truths you know, and those which you’ve yet to discover. Sometimes chance will benefit you, sometimes not. In the end, you just have to compromise with what you get vs. what you want, because you'll find that they're often two very different things.
Life is nothing but chance, whether you take it or remain reserved.
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