Wildcard or Reason?

[PlayboyMegan]

Are you the type to believe everything happens for a reason?
Or that life is just a wild card with no reason at all?
Which do you think is more comforting to hear when you are at a bad point in life?

 

[Brad]

Are you the type to believe everything happens for a reason?
Or that life is just a wild card with no reason at all?
Which do you think is more comforting to hear when you are at a bad point in life?

Good question Megan. I actually believe in a combination of both. But for myself it is more comforting to hear that all the bad crap that has happened to me is just bad luck rather then it happening for a reason. If it really does all happen for a reason then whoever is in charge needs to quit picking on me.

 

[JerryBoBerry]

Are you the type to believe everything happens for a reason?
Or that life is just a wild card with no reason at all?
Which do you think is more comforting to hear when you are at a bad point in life?

There is no reason to life. We grow old, we die. Nothing we do in between really matters in the long run.

imho. yada yada yada

 

[Jillybean]

I don't think there's any grand plan or reason to anything at all.

Shit just happens.
Bad shit, good shit, it all just happens.

 

[LaceyRoyce]

I absolutely see, feel and believe our universe, lives are on a pattern.. they follow patterns, there are lessons, and reasons for everything.

 

[PlayboyMegan]

I believe in the law of attraction. Which is not comforting since I believe I attract the bad things in my life. :?
But it is comforting to think I have control and can change it.

 

[SerenaMoon]

I believe all this has happened before and it will happen again. So kind of like Lolli's pattern theory.

 

[VeronicaChaos]

(on a more serious note, I tend to believe in the law of attraction because you create your own reality...which actually goes into the wildcard theory because if there is no reason you have to make your own)

 

[LacieLaPlante]

I do believe life is a wildcard. I don't think there is anything reason, logic, science, money, religion can do to change some events.

Everything could be perfect and then one little.. "factor" can change the whole outcome. Nothing could have prevented it because there's always that wildcard.

Thusly, I always expect something to go wrong, not work in some way because.. you never know.

 

[AllisonWilder]

I believe in a little of both, I guess.

I've always thought of it like this: Every little thing I've ever done or didn't do was either a direct result of something else I did or didn't do or directly causes something that I will or won't do. It's all for a reason, but all of those reasons are wildcards to me.

 

[PunkInDrublic]

Nothing is predetermined and everything is random.

 

[LiLredhairedgrl]

I am with Allison.


:-D

 

[SweepTheLeg]

Life is just everyone's choices collectively coming to a point and everyone reacting to those choices and so on and so on. I don't believe there is a reason behind things good or bad happening, shit just happens.

Also, damn Veronica for beating me to the punch on the wildcard, bitches.

 

[Annvious]

“We are all wired into a survival trip now. No more of the speed that fueled that 60's. That was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary's trip. He crashed around America selling "consciousness expansion" without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realities that were lying in wait for all the people who took him seriously... All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could buy Peace and Understanding for three bucks a hit. But their loss and failure is ours too. What Leary took down with him was the central illusion of a whole life-style that he helped create... a generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old-mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture: the desperate assumption that somebody... or at least some force - is tending the light at the end of the tunnel.”

This is a good example of how I feel about life, I remember reading this part in the book and thinking "fuck, I'm an atheist". I wish I could believe in more but I don't. A lot of atheists seem bitter because they are for a while, it was a grieving process when I lost my religious thought process. I'm happy now though and try to just live life to the fullest, be the best person I can be.

So wildcard.

 

[southsamurai]

Are you the type to believe everything happens for a reason?
Or that life is just a wild card with no reason at all?
Which do you think is more comforting to hear when you are at a bad point in life?

life is a constant stream of choices. every choice we make, every decision is a quantum event which spawns multiple realities. therefore all existence is ordered and predetermined in that we have already chosen our futures based on the decisions of the past. however, the future itself is inherently in a state of flux, as is the past. only the present exists in any coherent form. each picosecond is still too large to contain the moment of reality that is constantly forming from the past and spooling in infinite threads into the future.

but! since life is ordered by near infinite choices made by a vast number of viewers it becomes so close to chaos that from the inside one can not see the order clearly. thus life is reason, but we think it is wildcard because our sensorium can only perceive the now.

either that or the sound of one hand clapping is the sound of fapping in the forest where no one can hear when your jizz knocks down a tree or something like that

 

[LuckySmiles]

When horrible things happen..ex: a good friend dying young, and someone says, "everything happens for a reason" I want to punch that person square in the face.
How I feel when something incredibly awesome happens? "it's meant to be!"

But ultimately you make decisions, and sometimes good comes of them, sometimes bad, but are always at least partially, out of your own control. Everything is what you make it. And you definitely can control some of it, but never all of it.

When you're conscious of it, it's weird though. I've had times where it's like.. if I never lost my keys in my house that day, and spent and extra 10 minutes looking for them, I'd never have bumped into so and so and gone out with them. But it doesn't necessarily mean anything. You apply meaning and reason to what you want to get by. I can think someone very religious for example is kind of whacky, but totally understand why they sleep well at night.

 

[DudeExtreme]

I believe in a combination of different thoughts already discussed. There are def patterns in the universe that are set in motion. We as a society have allow history to repeat itself, sometimes too often and sometimes several years or centuries apart.

On an individual basis, I believe in the law of attraction. How I felt about myself or others in my past have affected me in the present. With that in mind, positive changes in the present will definitely make me feel better in the present and in the future. This gives me hope that I can change and control who I am or will become. Nothing is set in stone. The future is what we make of it starting today.

I also believe there are unseen forces that have protected me from making the wrong decisions or the wrong turn. Maybe the law of attraction is a part of it, I don't know. There are just some things in life that are beyond my comprehension or understanding.

 

[Aella]

I don't understand the question.

Everything that happens is an effect from a cause, a chain of causes that stretch back to the beginning of time. The only special 'meaning' in these things are meanings we assign them, and neither are they 'random,' but perfectly explainable.

 

[Nordling]

Everything happens for a reason, just not an intelligent reason.


:mrgreen:

 

[krukstyle]

(on a more serious note, I tend to believe in the law of attraction because you create your own reality...which actually goes into the wildcard theory because if there is no reason you have to make your own)

Hahahahaha--I can't see the word "Wildcard" without immediately thinking about this episode of It's Always Sunny--absolute pure genius.

Good discussion. I will probably just end up retreading on what's already been said but...

I believe everything happens for a reason or at least some reason. Maybe not a good reason, or a logical reason, or an important or prophetic reason. Maybe it's a reason that's totally out of one's control, but I believe there is some reason, however random the result may seem, behind each and every event. When viewed as a complex system, these events and corresponding reasons most likely appear as complete chaos... but I still believe there is are reasons (causes) fueling events (effects).

Ultimately I believe that there are some events in life that one can control, and others that one cannot. The trick (at least for me) is taking advantage of the opportunities that I have influence over, and not driving myself crazy over the ramifications created by events/happenings that are completely out of my control. I believe there are reasons behind all of these happenings--it's just that some of these reasons are things over which I have zero influence.

The interesting thing is that both the "wildcard" and the "everything happens for a reason" camp are eerily similar in some respects. If you totally adhere to the wildcard theory, then everything is completely random--and essentially out of your control. If you completely buy into the "everything happens for a reason" philosophy, again you have no control over the events of your own life. Personally I need to put myself somewhere in the middle of these two camps--so I can at least believe/think that I have some control over the events that occur in the world around me. It helps like keep me sane and happy and stuff. :-D

 

[Brad]

Ultimately I believe that there are some events in life that one can control, and others that one cannot. The trick (at least for me) is taking advantage of the opportunities that I have influence over, and not driving myself crazy over the ramifications created by events/happenings that are completely out of my control. I believe there are reasons behind all of these happenings--it's just that some of these reasons are things over which I have zero influence.

I like this and it mirrors my thoughts.
:thumbleft:

 

[LadyLuna]

I'm with SouthSamurai and Aella here.

Everything has a reason, in that everything in the present was caused by something in the past. But there isn't some overlord with a plan. Also, putting out positive thoughts to cause positive things to happen to you is partially bullshit, but partially true.

Basically, half the thing that keeps people at their current level is either a lack of desire to go higher, or a lack of belief that you can get higher. Circumstances are the other half, but circumstances can be overcome if you have both the belief that you can do so and the will to do so. Also, you get in the habit of seeing the positive, well, it is everywhere, and everything seems better. Both the positive and the negative are everywhere, and you can choose which perception you pay attention to. It takes a long time to break the old habit and form the new one though.

Somewhat related: control over your emotions.

I believe you don't have much control over your initial reaction. The only way to change that is intensive training that lasts for a full year for every two years that you've been the way you are. However, you can easily train yourself not to give away what that initial reaction is, and train yourself to almost instantly replace it with the one that you want. So in that way, you do control your emotions.

You can choose who you love. But once you give your heart to someone, it's awfully hard to take it back. Once you've chosen to care about someone, you're going to always care about them. If you can't bear to love them anymore, the only other option is to hate them. You can't choose who you're attracted to in the immediate. But you can purposely grow attracted to someone.

All these are things I think about a lot, and I put them all in the same category.

 

[Just Me]

Are you the type to believe everything happens for a reason?
Or that life is just a wild card with no reason at all?
Which do you think is more comforting to hear when you are at a bad point in life?

This question has been debated by philosophers for thousands of years. This is a great blog that goes over many of the ideas of free will and determinism.

The question of whether free will exists has been of interest to philosophers for more than two millenia. Over the last few years, the free will question has also grabbed the attention of psychologists and neuroscientists. There’s been a spate of articles claiming that science has demonstrated that free will is nothing but an illusion, or, conversely, that neurobiology lends support to the claim that we are free, morally responsible agents.

Either of these views might turn out to be correct. But in philosophy (as well as in science) it is important to be right for the right reasons, and this is precisely where many of these treatments of the free will problem fall down. To anyone versed in the relevant philosophical literature, these scientific discussions of the free will problem are often achingly naïve.

I think free will (wildcard) might be the most comforting when at a bad point in life. Knowing nothing you do or could have done can change the bad things that happen to you would be a pretty crappy way to live and might make us apathetic to changing things in our lives. If free will turns out to be an illusion, I don't think that changes the way I feel or think unless I can "see" through the illusion. If the illusion is unbreakable it becomes part of our reality.

 

[rexcode]

I don't understand the question.

Everything that happens is an effect from a cause, a chain of causes that stretch back to the beginning of time. The only special 'meaning' in these things are meanings we assign them, and neither are they 'random,' but perfectly explainable.

This reminds me of a song: "I Would Not Be Here" by John Hartford (better known for writing "Gentle On My Mind", but everything he wrote was great.) Anyway, here's the lyrics:

I would not be here if I hadn't been there
And I wouldn't been there if I hadn't just turned
On Wednesday the third in the late afternoon
Got to talking with George who works out in the back
And only because he was getting off early
To go see a man at a Baker Street bookstore
With a rare first edition of Steamboats And Cotton
A book he would never have sought in the first place

Had he not been inspired
By a fifth grade replacement schoolteacher in Kirkwood
Who was picked just at random
By some man on a school board who couldn't care less
And she wouldn't been working
If not for her husband
Who moved two months prior to work in the office
Of a man he had met
While he served in the army
And only because they were in the same barracks
An accident caused by a poorly made roster
Mixed up on the desk of a Sargent from Denver
Who wouldn't be in but for bein' in back
In the car he was ridin' before he enlisted that hit a
cement truck
and killed both his buddies

But a back seat flew up there and spared him from dyin'
And only because of the fault of a workman
Who forgot to turn screws on a line up in Detroit
Cause he hollered at Sam who was hateful that morning
Hungover from drinkin alone at a tavern
Because of a woman he wished he'd not married
He met long ago at a Jewish Bar Mitzvah
For the son of a man who had moved there from Jersey

Who managed a drugstore that sold the prescription
That cured up the illness he caught way last summer
He wouldn't have caught except for some kid
All contagious from fever who sat in his lap
Was the son of a man who sold him insurance
He met at a ...