Is our destiny predetermined?
The whole idea of fate has inspired novels, poems, songs, symphonies and many a legend over the years and you often hear people in ordinary, everyday life say: "It must be fate." I, for one, believe there's got to be something out there, some grand scheme of destiny, and this idea is at the heart of both my novels.
Here are some of my favourite quotes on the subject:
“You often meet your fate on the road you take to avoid it.” Goldie Hawn
“There’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be.” John Lennon
“Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect, as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper." Albert Einstein
And here are a couple of comments my own characters passed on to me:
“Destiny can be diverted, but it can never be cheated.” (Osman, an elderly Egyptian mystic in The Way Things Fall).
“You can’t keep knocking on the door of destiny, asking what it has in mind… stay quiet … everything will eventually become clear.” (The mother of Dominic, one of the central characters in In Love with the Night).
