#26 A WOMAN'S BRIEFS -- TERGIVERSATION
While I listened to Steve Taylor’s clever song, “Squint” Ta D-U-M da da DUM, my mind moved from the song’s five beats to the five letters required in that day’s Wordle. I had made a mess of it. Just look at this first line:
I chose the word, “would.” Really now, three good consonants, two perfect vowels. Duds. All. Not one right letter. Well then, try this: “vines.”
What the heck? One letter? I have one usable letter, and that not even rightly placed? Try again: “Farce.” Four correct letters, none where they belong!
One stinking letter off on the FIFTH try! ONE Stink’n letter. It’s got to be an ‘M’ or a ‘K.’ Which? Shall I call on the Universe or my daughter for help? I chose my daughter. She chose the ‘M.’ She was Wrong!
What if I bought into that old bromide, “Everything happens for a reason.” Of course, it does. The reason it took me six whole lines in this Wordle game is because 1) I chose to play, 2) I chose a totally useless first clue. 3) I chose to continue playing—badly. These are reasons enough.
But when people say (I mean, even Marilyn Monroe said it!), “It’s for a reason that everything happens,” it feels like the word warrants upper-case letters? Like REASON is something other-than; a thing in itself. Some Greater Purpose is behind it all. As if Reason lies outside of me, outside my agency. Wow. Reason becomes personified, providential, at least mysterious, and certainly transcendent.
Is this what the guy at the nondescript bar meant when he clapped you on the shoulder just after you missed the cruise ship because your non-English speaking Taxi driver turned left instead of right, led you through a distant village where parade floats packed the car-park he needed for turning around, rather than toward the harbor where the ship’s crew had just thrown off dock lines and departed without you? Was there a Reason when you said, “Harbor” he heard “Harzer,” a village thirty miles away? Reason or Chance, the Universe, the Butterfly in Brazil flapping its fragile wings, or Providence? My mind meanders.
The way-too-brilliant Aristotle, 4th century BCE philosopher, student of Plato, mentor to Alexander the Great said, Sure, there is some chance in life. And, oh, some providence. He believed the gods could mess with us, but don’t be hasty. Gods ruled stuff we call immutable and everlasting –you know, stuff like the universe and elements of nature.
Speaking of Universe (upper-case ‘U’), what’s with my friends who appeal to it the way others appeal to gods; as if the universe, atoms and energy, makes decisions for us?
Aristotle taught that humans are endowed with reason (lower-case) and instincts that enable us to cooperate with gods. All else, said he, is chance. By chance I was talking to my daughter on the phone. By chance I mentioned the game on my computer screen. By chance I asked what letter she would choose as the final letter in the fifth line, the ‘M’ or the ‘K.’ Darn.
Epicurus was nineteen years old when Aristotle died. “It’s all chance,” he said. The gods aren’t bothering with messing with our choices. He held onto reason as a human attribute. Attributed by what, whom, I might ask.
I imagine Epicurus, ever in search of principled pleasure by reasonable means, standing over my shoulder as I hit the ‘M’ key. Not gods, not butterflies (even if they flitted about in Epicurus’ own grand garden), not a personified Universe. Reason, yes, but not reason requiring a capitalized ‘R’ except at the beginning of a sentence. Epicurus had rules for behavior that led to tranquility but otherwise, good luck, it’s all chance. Okay. I’m into it now. Reason, Providence, the Universe, Chance, Free Will, Serendipity.
Did I freely choose “creaM” instead of the correct answer, “creaK”?
One 10th-century answer was: “No, you didn’t.”
If I l understand, and it’s probable that I don’t, that was the opinion of the great Islamic teacher, Abū al-Hasan al-Ash’arī. Nothing in the universe is due to chance, said he. Everything is brought about through the purposeful will of, not gods, but God.
“Not a leaf falls but that it was meant to fall.”
I’m relieved. The ‘M’ was meant. It was not my doing.
Not so fast says Ash’arī. God determines but you are responsible. “. . . the human being who performs the act is responsible for it, because they have ‘acquired’ the act.”
It’s complicated.
The revered 12th-century Sephardic Jewish philosopher, Moses ben Maimonides, he who once wrote a Guide for the Perplexed, agreed. God (by a different name of course) is in control of things. However, Maimonides stood with Aristotle believing that some chance is possible.
I’m on a roll. I have been rightly confused by a couple of Greeks, a Muslim, a Jew, and I’m adding a Christian, just to keep my balance.
John Calvin, the 16th-century French lawyer turned rigid Christian theologian, using reason, produced over a thousand pages in four volumes to explain Christianity—all the while believing we humans, even our thinking, are pretty much totally depraved. Calvin eliminated all chance, luck, or fortune, Aristotle, Epicurus, and Maimonides be damned. Like Ash’arī, Calvin believed humans acts out of necessity but not coercion. So, what? I had to choose the ‘M,’ but I wasn’t forced to?
It’s complicated.
By this point, all three of my children would say, “Holy crap!”
In a quest to blame something other than myself for a sad stab at Wordle, I’ve flipped from a game’s five-letter word, to Steve Taylor’s tune with its five-beat rhythm, to five powerfully persuasive thinkers, and a five-word bromide.
Everything happens for a reason
The reason it took me six whole lines in this Wordle game is because 1) I chose to play, 2) I chose a totally useless first clue. 3) I chose to continue playing—badly. Those are reasons enough. It’s time to refresh my sourdough starter. I can’t shake the feeling that I must.
