HUMMING IN MY UNIVERSE By Jim Paredes (The Philippine Star) Updated October 24, 2010 12:00 AM

Illustration by REY RIVERA

Most people like to explain away the eerily coincidental, the marvelously synchronistic, or any event, story or person that defies the odds as something that was meant to happen. We like to think that the way certain things play out just “had to be.”

It is “fate,” we conclude, as if a single word can explain why things happen as they do.

In our history as Filipinos, there are many events that look like acts of fate. They seem to be interventions in our national life that were meant to happen and which have changed the course of our history. The saga of the Aquino family that began with Ninoy’s assassination and continues to play out with P-Noy’s presidency, is one such example. In fact, despite the player’s hesitation, as in the case of Noynoy, fate still wins in the end.

There is a saying, “Fate leads the willing, and drags along the reluctant.” Thus, for many Filipinos, especially when they think of how Cory’s death made the people look to her son as their new beacon, P-Noy was fated to be president. We have many stories in our own lives that we explain and classify under the “fate” category — the job that was suddenly offered that made you successful, the person you married, winning the lottery or a raffle, the many circumstance that changed the course of our lives that happened without our doing anything.

Lately, I’ve been fascinated by stories of people that seem to be proof of the reality that is fate.

A wealthy woman I know who was passing through a community center building thought she heard the voice of an infant calling her. When she looked to her side, just a few feet away, she saw a four-month-old baby girl carried by her mother, smiling and cooing at her with arms outstretched in her direction. The woman approached the indigent mother and politely asked if she could carry her baby who had charmed her completely.

Seeing that the baby was sick and a bit malnourished, the wealthy woman offered to care for the baby until she was healthy enough. The mother consented. It was not too long after that the wealthy woman was able to convince the poor woman to let the child live with her. Eventually, the mother gave up her baby for adoption.

That was 38 years ago. The baby, now a full-grown woman, raised and schooled in the best way possible and with kids of her own, has recently adopted an unwanted child because she wanted to pay forward the great blessings that life had showered upon her.

When I realize the lowly station the adopted baby girl was born into, and how wonderfully different life has played out for her, I am tempted to think that there must have been some grand plan that unraveled for her. This could not have been just the luck of the draw, or the universe playing dice. The wealthy woman who adopted her thinks that it was all meant to be.

It is comforting to think of fate as being kind, intervening in the lives of people in a good way. But there is another way to look at fate.

A line in the poem “Desiderata” goes: “…and whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.” I am of two minds about this. First, could it be possible that things as they unfold are really meant to happen?

This view that life is fait accompli can be terrifying or calming, depending on where you are, psychologically and spiritually. It can bring an irrational panic or a deep spiritual acceptance of whatever or however life unfolds. Some people will see their lives as totally out of their control and live in constant fear while some will accept and explain things by charging events in their lives to karmic debt or redemption.

Or, is it not so much that things happen the way they do, but that people themselves are meant to cause things to happen?

The practical and the action-oriented will resonate more with this second view as expressed by Siddhartha Buddha centuries ago: “I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act.” People make the world turn. It is people, not the heavens, who dictate the flow of life.

But then, one can argue that it is still the fates themselves that cause men to do the things they do and that is, to achieve the fates’ directives.

How independent can our actions be when we feel “fated” by our religion, nationality, physical attributes, economic conditions, educational attainment, and other extraneous factors? Are we really free agents doing free acts or are we robots programmed to play the cards that fate hands to us?

This debate can run on endlessly. But here’s what I know.

There are people who are able to behave differently from their conditioning. How is it that a man like Nelson Mandela who was imprisoned for 28 years could emerge from prison and lead a nation without persecuting his tormentors? How is it that wealthy people can go against their material interests and selflessly contribute their wealth to the less fortunate? And more recently, in Chile, how is it that men could voluntarily engage in a dangerous situation that could kill them in order to rescue 33 miners trapped 250 meters under the earth’s surface?

There is no talk of fate for such people, but only what and how they intended their life’s meaning to be.

In India, were fate seems to be married to religious beliefs in a way that affects a great number of people negatively, the great Prime Minister Jawarharlal Nehru once said, “Life is like a game of cards. The hand you are dealt is determinism; the way you play it is free will.”

The wealthy woman, who adopted the poor child — and later on, the same child who, as an adult, adopted another poor child — lifted the yoke of fate with their free acts of kindness and compassion. Fate becomes redefined as an act of liberation when it is intentioned and acted upon, instead of just simply being allowed to play out.

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1) Photography Workshop in Dumaguete on Nov. 20. Meeting place at AVR-Grade School Dept. St Paul’s University. It will be from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Fee includes lunch, certificate. Please call Chinky at 0916-4305626 for slot reservation.

2) Advanced photo class in Manila on Nov. 13. This will be held outdoors. Venue to follow. If interested, please call 426-5375 or 0916-8554303 or write me at emailjimp@gmail.com.