In the song "Roll the Bones" by Rush, there is a lyric that, while simple, is deeply true and profound; "Fate is just the weight of circumstances." In Oedipus, circumstances led him to kill his father, circumstances crowned him king, circumstances allowed him to lay with his mother in unholy union. The gods and the seers called this fate, of course, for it was their will for it to happen. But we know now that those gods were just constructs of human creation and the events leading to the fall of Oedipus was just that of terrible circumstance. Or in the case of those in poverty, the determinist might believe that their fate has determined their condition; but we know that that isn't true. Their poverty, and likewise, their state of mind, has been created or worsened by the circumstances of their own life.
Perhaps the plant closed, perhaps they're parents were poor, the schools weak, perhaps they were victim to injury. They cannot control these things, these things are random or a product of the social machine as a whole. The individual weight of each event, relative to the individual in question, is rather irrelevant, it is the sum of all the individual weights that define the 'fate' of an individual. The term weight, as used here, defines the sort of emotional, physical, or psychological stress or harm caused by the event; it is essentially the burden left behind. It also doesn't have to be necessarily a bad thing either, perhaps something good happens by chance, these would also be a weight by this definition, because Fate encompasses more than just the bad, but the good as well. But why does this matter? Does fate determine the conditions of our life?
It goes without saying that circumstances matter, they create our life, they are the reason our life is the way it is; it is always circumstances that create a deviation with the ideal. The presence of circumstances gives people choices and these choices determine what new circumstances could happen, but they also change the person and who the person is by adding a definition to his life. This process happens multiple times a day, forever spiraling and spiraling. Take for example a high school student applying to college, the circumstances of their past, the choices they have made with regards to their education previously, all lead to this one event.
However, that student has many different options, apply to a lot of colleges, apply to few, apply to reach schools, apply to safety schools. This process gets even more cloudy the more variables that go into this particular decision. Was it fate they are applying to college or was it a happenstance created by his past circumstances, and how those circumstances changed him? I think those two things are tightly related. I think that we can formulate a working definition of fate, that could actually be applicable to daily life. Rather than defining fate as a means to describe the entirety of one's life, it would be more fitting to define it as a push in a certain direction.
Elaboration is needed, on this topic, but it makes sense if we examine this definition closely. Circumstances change, perhaps as a result of luck, of misfortune, of hard work, etc., and so to do people change as a result of these changes in circumstances. People make choices based on their inclinations, and these choices likewise reflect who the people are in varying degrees. Choices affect future circumstances in some manner or the other. Consider buying a lawnmower. They make a conscious choice to buy it, based on their personal need at that moment. This changes the circumstance of a messy, un-kept lawn, and this creates happiness within the buyer. So they choose to use the lawn mower more.
An odd example, yes, but it illustrates the relationship between these things well. So if we define fate as the summation of all necessary measures (i.e the ones listed above) we could potentially analyze the weight of circumstances and personality and how they affect someone's predisposition to make certain conscious choices.
This then is fate; a pre-disposition, that is always being slightly modified by each new circumstance, choice, change in personality, that pushes us in certain directions. Rather than looking at the end of the action and describing that as fate, this approach takes an analytical approach to examining actions. We can reach the logical conclusion from this definition that the weight of circumstances, personality, and choice predispose someone to a certain end goal, but there is variance because it changes. While fate necessarily predisposes action, the action is independent of fate, and the action still changes fate.
Fate, therefore, can be changed and should be changed. As weights can change, and weights can also change one's direction. Rush had it wrong though, it is not just the weight of circumstances, it is so much more than that, it is everything that makes us human. And poor Oedipus, it was not his fate to end up that way, the God's just hated him.
