If predestination does exist, we are powerless to alter the course of our life. If it does not exist, we are powerless to alter the course of our life because of the infinite variables involved in just staying alive. There is no answer to the question of life.
For reasons unbeknown to myself (destiny perhaps), I ended up watching the Pixar movie "Soul" last week.
It took a kids movie to realise I've been sold a pig in a poke with all that destiny, self determination and purpose nonsense. A life chock full of MacGuffins.
Hopefully I'm blessed with a significant number of years now that I've realised that I've spent half a century thinking about getting to the end of a song instead of playing the notes, or catching fish instead or enjoying the tick-tock of the fly-cast, or getting to the green instead of swinging the club etc.
At least that's what I'll be telling people if they see me this week sitting on a wall throwing stones at a dog turd on the pavement, like I did when I was 8.
I'll be having zen-like experience.
Maybe I'll become a rich and famous guru or something like the Maharishi with my dog turd stone meditation; perhaps that's my destiny.
Oh Bugger! Now I've just tied my premise up in a granny knot.
That's Zen for you, I s'pose.
To be a searcher means looking beyond worldly conquests that beguile youthful imaginations and finally discovering those careful mysteries reserved for those who have outlasted their utility in the swarming bazaar. It is then that you take the spoon and slowly lift it to the lips of the earth angels, the minutes melting away in quiet perfection.