The rôle of fate

I have always believed that fate plays a supreme rôle in our lives, making life’s journey hazardous and impossible to predict. Battles, meetings and careers have all been undermined by the strangest happenstances.

Let me give you an example from last Monday.

I was walking to the bus stop when a paint brush dropped on me from an upper level.

I knew someone’s son who had lost his eye in such circumstances.

My damage was confined to paint on the sleeve of my jacket.

The painter could not have been nicer, offering to buy me a new one.

I said let’s wait to see if a cleaner can remove it. Then he suggested we went to a nearby cash machine immediately so he would cover the cleaning cost, which he more than did.

He then gave me a lift to the bus stop. I was meeting a friend for lunch who once headed up the litigation department of one of the world’s finest law firms.

We joked when we met that I would not now be needing his advice as I had “settled out of court”.

My point is that I had stopped for a few minutes on a court yard to pass the time of day with a window cleaner whom I know and like.

At the last moment I had decided to wear a hat. I chose the first jacket in my cupboard.  I could have arrived at the scene of the incident later – or differently dressed.

That I did not was – if you think about it – fate.

If I trace the series of events that resulted in my friendship with the lawyer, fate played a huge rôle in them.

That is why I can never believe in astrology and astrologers as they believe everything is predictable and there is no room for fate.

I am just reading the definitive biography of Adolf Hitler by Ian Kershaw.

Other than his talent for oratory showcased after World War One by addressing large gatherings in Munich beer halls, Hitler was largely a nobody, a misfit, in his ascent to power.

There was a large element of luck and mis-judgment that took  him to Chancellorship, leading a party that at one stage had only 2.5% of the vote and even in 1933 just 33%.

He had neither capacity nor experience as a leader but, as Kershaw brilliantly charts that rise, the rôle of fate is very clear and present.

He did not have a stain on his sleeve but a swastika.