Fortune Cookies Are Not Random
There’s something that’s been bothering me, weighing on my mind like a deadlifting monkey. When deadlifting it’s important to lift with your legs and press your heels into the ground. That’s what this damn monkey is doing to the soft flesh of my brain. This monkey’s heels are digging directly into my decision-making lobe, rendering it squashed and useless.
You know how I’ve always been a proponent of serendipity? My belief that nothing in this universe is random is a strong held conviction that propels me forward with the force of a hurricane, tearing down anything that dares step foot in my path. Well, the past two weeks that hurricane has died a bit. The winds have calmed and the serendipitous moments have subsided. Now don’t go trying to lift me back up, just listen for a moment. As a side note: we’re all so opposed to others expressing feelings of distress and we’re so inclined to rush in and drag them up that we stop listening to what they are really trying to say.
Two weeks ago I was in NYC visiting a friend. With scotch in hand (his neat, mine on the rocks) we splayed on his sofa till 4am discussing life. Neither of us had stayed up till the wee hours blabbering and philosophizing to anyone in years and although we were prying our eyes open with dead fingers by 4am, it was a night filled with words that have remained with me since. However, it was something that B said that night that extinguished the gusts of my hurricane. His theory on randomness combined with my stress of awaiting word on my book thingy and questioning if this path is really “meant to be” has decapitated my head for two weeks. Yes, decapitated – as in, I feel like my head is gone.
“Maybe everything in this universe is random, it’s just scarier to think that things happen randomly than to assign meaning to them, so we assign arbitrary meaning to make ourselves feel better.” -B.What? Maybe everything really is random? Maybe serendipity is just fantasy? What if I’m just so uncertain and afraid of life and all of its ups and downs that I assign meaning where meaning doesn’t exist? I’ve pondered this for TWO whole weeks. You know what else I’ve done for TWO whole weeks? Not much of anything. The idea that running into my friend Jason twice within one week could mean nothing, or that winning Cupcake Wars is not a keyhole to something larger, or that being dumped by George was not a catalyst to creating space in my life to write a book proposal, or that in looking at 10 different new locations dollop has yet to find a new home; the thought that all of these occurrences are just completely random… that does frighten me. It not only frightens me, it paralyzes me. For if everything is random, then everything is meaningless, and even worse, Hurricane Heather is relegated to gusty Heather. And ya know… gusty Heather just doesn’t have the same strength. Last night while grabbing some chinese vegetables at the food buffet at Wegmans, I decided to test this randomness theory by snatching two fortune cookies. Cracking open the first it read, “Your talents will bring you the highest status and prestige”. Ok, there could be meaning in that -- writing a book would bring me prestige. Let’s try a second fortune to see if the first is merely random. Number two read, “The world will soon be ready to receive your talents”. Boom. Randomness, my ass. Ok so these fortune cookies in no way mean that I’ll be offered a book deal but if I choose to bundle these fortunes with my sullied chopstix, dumping them all in the trash and mosey on mopily as I have the past two weeks believing that everything is random and assigning zero meaning to everything, then I’ll choose to remain gusty and immobile, blowing a lone leaf from lawn to lawn. However, if I enact my previously long-held belief that nothing in this universe is random and that signs are little propellants and affirmations from the universe to preserve your forward motion, I can get back to waking up in Hurricane mode, making shit happen and blowing piles of leaves to cover the lawns of the world. I’m choosing to believe in serendipity again from this day forward, even if it is just to make myself feel good. Were the past two weeks of paralyzed pondering random? Not even kinda, my friends. Cupcakes = Life Heather Cupcakes
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