Another one of my rambling mind thoughts. (please bear in mind, I'm not a scientist nor do I claim to be, so feel free to back up/rubbish my theories with some stuff I won't understand. I'm not here for Science awards, I'm here to spew my inner chatter.)
I read about 3 things recently.
1. If it wasn't for a genetic quirk, our jaws wouldn't have become smaller in relation to our heads, which in turn gave the brain the capacity to grow larger and took us that vital step away from our ape-like cousins.
2. Some Americans got mad because Coca Cola played an advertisement during the recent Super Bowl where people sang 'America The Beautiful' in various languages.
3. Phillip Seymour Hoffman died in his home of an apparent drug overdose.
What do all these things have in common? Luck. Fate. Circumstance. Whatever you want to call it, here's my theory:
Nature, as we've come to understand through science, tends to lean towards the strong and eliminate the weak. Everything that we see, have, hear and do is a result of genetic quirks (the jaw), mutations (we've lost tails and extra body hair through evolution, for example) and simple accidents (I'm putting it out there; the person who realised how to make fire was probably bored and rubbing things...). None of these points are asked for or creatively engineered. Now I know this could go into some shaky territory too, regarding religion and its role in our presence, but even then you can say that 'man' never asked for existence, it was given to us by whichever god you believe in. Either way, you're only here because the genes are strong in your line, our brains developed and we got smart enough to sustain our existence (for the moment) and it's taken many thousands of years and some real lucky incidents that you even exist. Good thing your Great Great Great Great Grandfather didn't eat that bad chicken that time, eh?
Similarly, the Superbowl thing left me scratching my head. Not actually, that would look retarded. As a black person, in this day and age I still don't understand the racism that is hurled with such anger towards me and my fellow people-who-aren't-Western-white, but it's still there so you just roll with the punches. If you want to read some of the interesting tweets/posts and see the commercial check here. Americans especially seem to be quite obsessed with 'Patriotism' to me, a lot of people are proud of where they call home, but I would prefer that they embrace their strengths rather than constantly pointing out the flaws. The thing that amuses me the most, is that the USA is a country built on mass immigration, and yet they're so hung up on being American. What the hell is 'being American'? Or British, French, Japanese or any other nationality for that matter? National Identity is one thing; accepting that many people from other cultures and nations are living in places they are foreign to and trying to get by without your crap seems to be another. To paraphrase Chris Rock, the only reason a person is born a nationality is because their mother chose to open her legs on that country's soil. That's it. You're a genetic lottery. Yes, people move to other places and tend to adopt the new country's mother tongue, values etc., and you can change your nationality to suit that. But again that's circumstance-led. Careers, love, finance, famine, war, can all play a major part in where you end up in life. So maybe some of those folks throwing around statements about a TV ad being 'unpatriotic' should take some time to think about where their grandparents could have ended up if they'd had different fortunes?
Now, with regards to Mr Phillip Seymour Hoffman... I used to be one of those folks who would be perplexed as to why a person couldn't just put down the bottle/pipe/needle if their families or careers meant so much to them. How could they not just want to live? It's been a while, and I still believe in choices, but, as with my previous 2 examples above, I see and understand how the role of circumstance and genetics govern the actions of most of us. Even those who feel they have all the will power and self control in the world, only have that because their brains are wired to do so. Everybody has a 'thing' (but some don't know how to handle it), a problem, addiction, flaw. It's just that some of us are, through many things like nurture, environment and good old fate are dealing with less dramatic (or deemed less dramatic in society, one man's hang nail is another's disaster) issues. I am a food addict, I eat sandwiches and mayonnaise like they're my life elixir. I give up sometimes, and other times I binge. As time and experience have gone on, I've learnt better ways to deal with what's behind my behaviour and try to combat it with exercise and thoughtful eating. But, and this is the thing that was hard to accept, it will always be there because that's just how my brain works. This is what I crave. I know people that are addicted to sex, alcohol, theft and drugs. Some others are addicted to hard work, doing daring things, giving. We're all searching for that buzz, that bit of our brain where the synapses spark into life and give us the feeling we want. Some of us are more inclined to getting that feeling more and in less positive ways, to the detriment of anything and anyone else, and common sense. Depression also plays a major role in our day to day actions. I don't think anyone would ask to be so messed up and controlled by an object or desire outside of their bodies. It's painful, but we are born with these predilections. We spend the rest of our lives either satisfying our impulses or trying to find ways to ignore the calls. It appears PSH was a recovering addict who had recently relapsed. The 'one last time' turned out to be it, a combination of the drugs, genetics and our friend Fate. He was a very talented actor and had 3 young children. I'm sure he would never have chosen to die in the way he did. But Luck wasn't on his side that day.
So I guess the moral of my rambling is:
You've got choices. But you've also got a bunch of stuff you didn't ask for or want to deal with handed to you on a plate before you were even thought of. And life is a wonderful equation of fate + circumstance divided by choices x effort. I'm unlucky in some respects, but I'm lucky in others. We all are.
Every day I choose to be grateful for that, keep working on the positives.
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