Fate. How much meaning this seemingly archaic word carries for a modern person.
The uncertainty of the world, quantum indeterminacy, our drive to make our own choices — all of this collapses like a house of cards when life takes a turn so significant that our consciousness cannot link it to any familiar construct.
Today, I do not want to discuss the philosophical foundations of this concept, nor the debates around free will or determinism. I want to look at fate through the lens of psychology, through cultural, historical, and scientific contexts.
Why does it still matter to us? How does it show up in everyday life? Is it time to finally ditch this outdated notion? Or is that simply impossible?
Let’s figure this out together.
As usual, I suggest we begin by looking at this concept through the prism of centuries.
In literature, the concept of fate is often connected to such figures of Greek and Norse mythology as the Moirai (for the Greeks) and the Norns (for the Norse).
They control the metaphorical thread of every creature’s life from birth to death. Lachesis determines what a person’s life will be, Clotho spins the thread of life by granting or withdrawing various paths, and Atropos cuts it, thereby determining the moment of death.
The Norse Norns — Urd, Verdandi, and Skuld, representing past, present, and future — although similar to the Moirai, are more associated with the cyclical nature of natural and cosmic laws. This is their key difference, for their Greek counterparts represent, rather, the inevitability and inescapability of fate.
This immediately brings to mind the following passage:
“The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches, born to those who have thrice defied…”
Oh, sorry, that is from a slightly different mythology. What I meant to quote was a piece from the Eddas:
Thence come the maidens mighty in wisdom, Three from the dwelling down ‘neath the tree; Urd is one named, Verdandi the next — on the wood they scored — and Skuld the third. Laws they made there, and life allotted To the sons of men, and set their fates.
But things are not that simple.
In Greek mythology, there are further figures responsible for fate. I will not go into indirectly related beings like Nemesis, Themis, or the Erinyes. Instead, I want to discuss two goddesses of fate.
The first is somewhat more straightforward, as she relates to that wonderful concept we have been exploring recently — justice.
Her name is Dike (or sometimes Astraea). She is the goddess of justice and fair judgement. Her name literally translates as “righteousness.” Dike is associated with order in human society and is often depicted holding scales on which she weighs good and evil deeds (compare this with the Judgement of Osiris, and the scales in the hands of the Archangel Michael). She ensures that everyone receives what they deserve and that the moral law is upheld. Dike is not so much concerned with predetermination as with maintaining social and moral order.
The second figure, however, is far more complex. Ananke.
Ananke embodies constraint, necessity, or the force of fate to which all mortals are subject. And immortals too. Yes, even the gods cannot escape fate. Ananke is inevitability and inescapability. She is the entropy of the Universe. The relentless second and third laws of thermodynamics.
She turns a spindle whose axis is the Axis of the world.
In some myths, Ananke appears as the prime cause of all existence, standing even above the gods, making her one of the most powerful and terrifying ancient deities. The concept of Ananke is deeply connected to the idea that there are certain things that cannot be changed. It does not matter why. Perhaps because they have already happened, even if they formally lie in the future. Perhaps because this is simply how the world works.
Now, after recalling various gods and supernatural beings responsible for fate, we can move to the essence.
Fate comes in different forms.
There is the fate we are given at birth — the lot that Lachesis chose for us. Psychologically, this can be interpreted as follows: we are all born with different starting conditions. Some are lucky, some are not. Does this mean that some can reach their goal and others cannot? Hardly. It is only a question of the effort required.
For example, a person may have a natural talent for music. Does this mean they will become a musician? Far from always. And the reverse is also true: if a person has no inborn talent for music, it does not mean they cannot learn to play. On the contrary, hard work can accomplish a great deal. Will they have to work harder for it? Without a doubt. Perhaps many times harder than someone with natural talent.
The same applies to material conditions. When you read success stories of the heroes of our time — the founders of Amazon or Tesla — much in these stories emphasises the role these people played in achieving their success. However, it is conveniently forgotten that their starting conditions were somewhat better than those of an average inhabitant of Earth. Actually, much better. Would they have become who they are had they been born somewhere else, under different material conditions? Not necessarily. But they would most likely have achieved something in life regardless.
Lachesis only deals the cards. How we play them depends, among other things, on us.
Certain changes are possible because Clotho weaves our life with different patterns. Can you win the pot in poker with a pair of threes? Absolutely. Just as you can lose with four of a kind.
In this sense, a person undoubtedly influences their own fate. Whatever cards you hold, much depends on the player.
Here, by the way, it is also worth mentioning the consequences of one’s actions, for which a person may very well face reckoning during their lifetime. The goddess of justice Themis, the Erinyes, and Nemesis all testify to this quite clearly. One could draw a parallel here with the concept of karma, although karma and justice are, in a way, somewhat different things.
Psychologically, this phenomenon is also well known. It is simple, ordinary neurosis.
Jung once gave a wonderful definition of neurosis as punishment for sin. Translated into modern language, the mechanism works as follows.
A person commits an act they consider bad. Let us suppose they receive no punishment for it (as we know, this happens all the time). The absence of punishment leads to a conflict: on the one hand, deep down, the person understands they did something wrong (hello, conscience); on the other hand, they seem to have “got away with it.” This conflict, according to Jung, transforms into neurosis. The person punishes themselves through neurosis for the transgression they committed.
Several elements of this equation are important.
First, the “bad” act. “Bad” here is an extremely subjective notion. The person must believe that the act is truly bad. If, for example, a person does not consider stealing to be wrong, they will not develop a neurosis over it, because from their point of view they have done nothing wrong.
Second, the absence of punishment. Formal punishment, even a fine or social condemnation, can to some degree relieve the neurosis, because the inner conflict disappears. “I did wrong, therefore I was punished, therefore everything is OK.” Themis in action.
And if a person persists and the neurosis intensifies, the Erinyes arrive to “help” them back onto the right path. Psychologically, these are somatic or other secondary manifestations of the original problem.
In short, for subjectively bad acts — or, as they would have been called in earlier times, sins — a person pays with neurosis. In a certain sense, this too is a manifestation of fate, because what is good and what is bad depends not only on the individual but on the broader sociocultural context. No matter how much certain modern movements insist that “everything is permitted” and “I live however I want,” the psyche, alas, obeys its own laws that do not depend on the ego’s will, even though they are mediated by it to some extent.
But all of that is small stuff. It is time to move to the main point — the Big Fate, inevitability, necessity, or, in the words of The Witcher, Destiny. Does this concept have a place in the modern world?
I believe it does.
In previous articles, we discussed the concept of life narrative and various mechanisms that help our consciousness assemble disparate events into a unified story. According to Habermas, one of the contemporary researchers of narrative identity, a life narrative has several crucial properties. We have already touched on some of them — for instance, causal coherence, when we explored the concepts of justice in the world and synchronicity.
But there is another type of coherence — thematic. From the word “theme.”
It determines what, exactly, is the central theme of one’s life story. What is it about?
Try doing an exercise on your own: write down the major events that have happened to you throughout your life, then connect them into a single story. You will see that it looks as if “there are no accidents,” and that many unexpected events, one way or another, contributed to bringing you to the point where you find yourself right now.
As O.W. Grant from Interstate 60 said: “Every event is inevitable, otherwise it would not have happened.”
This, in essence, is that very thing — fate.
Or rather, not quite fate itself, but some of its manifestations. It is impossible to understand the author’s intent without seeing the full picture. Fragments can give you an idea, but sometimes one small piece of the puzzle changes the entire meaning.
A question may arise here: where is this concept in psychology, particularly analytical psychology? Surely nobody there wrote about narratives and coherences.
In my view, Jung did have this concept. And its name is — individuation.
It is often said about individuation that it is something like self-actualisation, self-development, and so on. In a way, this is true. But it is only part of the picture.
In her wonderful work On Dreams and Death, Marie-Louise von Franz showed very clearly that individuation (including its quite advanced stages) actively proceeds even in children — who, one must admit, find it rather difficult at such a tender age to engage in such an indecent activity as self-development.
The term is much broader than that.
One of its facets, I would call precisely destiny.
Individuation is the road to what we are meant to become. It is the path to our Self, or, if you prefer simpler words, to our True Self, to our true desires. Precisely true ones, not “ordinary” ones.
Individuation is not about what I want “here and now.” Here and now I am influenced by millions of factors — from the sociocultural context and childhood baggage to current everyday worries. No matter how much Zen teachers talk about their wonderful zazen, it can help you live in the present and, possibly, lead you to your True Self, but this path is long, and clapping with zero hands is just one element in the equation.
The existentialists, Sartre in particular, devoted much attention to human choice. Man is choice, man creates himself.
Jung disagreed. From an acorn, only an oak tree grows. Never an aspen. And much depends on the conditions where this acorn was planted.
Of course, what kind of oak it will be depends on us too. But we can call ourselves aspens, birches, or even ashes as much as we like — we will not stop being oaks. This is Ananke. This is individuation. This is the famous “Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel” in Crowley’s Thelema.
Not becoming super-developed. Not reaching enlightenment. Not solving all your psychological problems. Not resolving childhood traumas. Not taking responsibility for your actions.
But becoming yourself.
The catch, of course, is that to answer the question “who am I,” you have to live an entire life.
Well then. It is within our power, at the very least, to make this journey full.
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.