Fate

I have a ton of reading to do for school...I had to read 55 pages of Dracula, 90 pages of The Penelopiad, 1/2 a Harry Potter book, and 40 pages of Greek philosophy over the weekend. -sigh- And that's just the literary stuff. I have dry textbooks to read too! Surprisingly though, I'm really enjoying it. Last semester, I didn't really get to read that much literature and philosophy so it's kind of nice to be able to this semester. I'm finally feeling like an English major!

Speaking of Greek philosophy though...Have you heard of the concept of "fate?" In my book, there's this hilarious pretend conversation between Zeus and Cyniscus. Unfortunately, I can't find it on the internet to share with you guys. :-( If you can find it, read it!

Anyways, these two are having a conversation about fate and how everything we do has already been planned for us. Basically, we have no say in how we live because three women in the sky have already laid out our entire lives for us.

I am sorry, but I think that is bullshit...We abolutely have a say in how we live our lives. We choose whether we become good or not-so-good people. However, the ancient Greeks think that everything is planned out for us.

The ancient Greeks also believed in a sort of "Heaven" and an "Underworld." Naturally, the people who were good were rewarded and the bad people punished. Think about this for a second...

So if we have absolutely no say whether we lead virtuous or vicious lives, then how can we be sorted into the afterlife fairly? We can't, because we didn't choose to do those bad or good things, the fates forced us to do them.

And that's when Zeus storms away from the conversation, haha.

The idea of fate intrigues me though because it would control even the Gods. Cyniscus asked another interesting question: what controls the fates? Is anything above it?

It sparks some very interesting writerly thoughts...