Fatalism - Fatalistic

1.  the doctrine that all events are predetermined by fate and are therefore unalterable.

2.  acceptance of the belief that all events are predetermined and inevitable.

A few years ago when I first arrived at the Lighthouse Mission in Terre Haute Indiana, I was sitting in the foyer engaged in a conversation with a young man from a local mental health institution, who helped residents with paperwork, to aid them to receive services from various sources, (I was not one of his clients). This was more in the line of two individuals wanting to learn from each other. I believe we did become acquaintances of a positive sort if we should ever meet again. But as he was asking about my life he made the comment, “Well, that seems very fatalistic".

This young man, I assume in his mid to late 20s, to me, seemed to think we are in complete control of our situations, and subsequently life’s circumstances are a matter of our decisions and control. To an extent I believe he is right. But what I think he fails to see, even as we do have the ability and responsibility to use our resources as best we are able, we are subject to conditions outside of our control, and even far outside our control, which produce a cultural and social environment we must learn to adapt to.

His perception of my "fatalism” was very limited. You see, like him I do believe we as human beings are endowed with certain mental and physical means to create our own realities. But as we are corporal beings, this ability to create, or re-create our reality is within a particular range. As human, or rather the human race, we exist as mental and physical beings. There are some limitations as to what we are capable of existing in, without the aid of technological advantages, but we do have the mental capacity to create these technical advantages which enable us to go, and do, into environments which otherwise are unnatural.

On a more limited basis our social environments may be every bit as limiting, and those who are either unable or unwilling to acquire the resources to adapt to this social environment find themselves at the whim and will, of whatever it is that social environment may provide for them. By this sense they are fatalist.

I am not a fatalist in the sense that I recognize my abilities, and shortcomings, but within the reality of understanding these, I will survive. Some, maybe many, find it necessary to be more adaptive to the social environment which provides more in the way of what they think are “human need". I don’t have a problem with this, but what I do have a problem with is the fact that those who do become more adaptive, think that what they have acquired is a result of what or who they are… It is not… It is a matter of “consume, conform and obey".

What makes our social environment work is a populous who buys into an idea that their purpose is to consume products, conform to society’s rules and obey its laws… In most cases, without consideration of what it is they have become… Without consideration of the society they have made… For many the idea that the life they could lead, the decisions they could make would have an effect on the reality of themselves and others is inconceivable. There is a perception, and it is a myth, an illusion that the way things are, are that way as a matter of some “divine or natural" assertion. The fact is things are the way they are because of centuries and millennia of simply not caring, and those that do care exercising more fore-sightedness than the general populace was capable of perceiving.

In this sense the doctrine of fatalism is something that is ingrained into our culture. But I do not believe I am fatalistic… There are things I can change, things I want to change, some things that cannot change unless we all begin to open our eyes and our minds… But that does not mean they are the way they should be.