Destiny

This may sound like it was written by Yoda. I guess a lot of my posts lately have been a little airy fairy.

I’ve been thinking about the difference between fate and destiny. This started after I watched an interesting documentary series on HBO about motifs in cinema. The narrator, who is a film professor, talked about the hero’s fate and the hero’s destiny and how those themes commonly play out in films. It was a little hard to understand. But fate seems to be the forces that move you forward to where you are. You can’t control your fate. It is behind you and you have gotten to where you are because of fate.

Destiny is before you and within your control. The hero/heroine controls and makes their destiny and that is what drives the film.

At least I think that’s right.

So my fate, which is behind me, was to lose my child. She died. I was not there, I can’t control that, it was my fate, it’s in the past, I have to accept it.

My destiny I can shape. What will be my destiny I’m still not sure. I don’t want my destiny to be depression and sadness for the rest of my life.