DE Weekly: History, Fate, & Inevitability
Below is an archived email originally sent on October 21, 2024.
History, Fate, & Inevitability
There are those who believe that no choice you make in your life matters. There are those with the opposite view that every choice you make is of ultimate consequence in life. I believe the reality is probably somewhere in the middle. I’ll try to explain why, using a book I finished this week as an example.
I just finished reading one of the best historical nonfiction books I’ve ever had the pleasure of opening: The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914, by historian Christopher Clark.
It covered the years and events preceding World War I, aiming to explore the machinations and decisions that led to a continental war in Europe.
Much of the discourse surrounding WWI paints the conflict as inevitable–you’ve probably heard people speak about it concluding “it was bound to happen,” that there was “no avoiding it.”
While not giving a definitive opinion of his own (as historians should be wise to do), Clark provides a detailed story that could be used to argue otherwise–one explained through a series of decisions made by the world leaders at the time which led to the war.
One of my takeaways was that WWI could have been avoided, had lots of people made lots of different choices in the preceding years and decades.
Even one week before the first declaration of war, Clark writes, certain powers could have deescalated the situation before it led to something much worse–what it ended up becoming.
“In this sense,” Clark writes, “the protagonists of 1914 were sleepwalkers, watchful but unseeing, haunted by dreams, yet blind to the reality of the horror they were about to bring into the world” (562).
One point that struck me was how reluctant each European leader was to engage in a continental war. It seemed as if they were dragged into it by old relationships and promises, alliances which didn’t benefit them and which they wished they hadn’t made.
All of this led to one big “How did we get here?”
That’s why this book sparked the existentialist chord in me.
The same way the tides of history can be shaped by a small number of powerful people, I believe the tides of our lives can be shaped by the choices we make on an individual level.
Say you’re in a relationship, and your significant other breaks up with you. The next day, your childhood pet dies. The day after that, you hear your company is doing a round of layoffs. It hasn’t hit you yet, but it might. But not yet.
Is the outcome of your life the next day already determined? Is where you’ll be in one month, in one year, in five years already set in stone?
Of course not. You’d have reason to believe so based on the events of the past few days, but you have the choice to decide where you go from here.
I’m a firm believer in individual choice. In responsibility. In human agency.
We need to understand that we are not just walking on this Earth with random events happening to us and around us.
The things that happen around us are–at the most basic level–because of individual choices made by other people and, yes, by ourselves.
Bad things can take place in your life, but they don’t have to get worse. You don’t have to let yourself spiral into catastrophe. You can make the choices to avoid it.
Take back that insult you made to your significant other. Apologize for something you did wrong. Call your family and keep a close relationship. Try harder at work. Do what you can to improve your situation and keep you and your loved ones secure.
Sometimes, choices can shape history. If you make enough wrong choices in a row, it could lead to WWI–it did for the world’s most powerful men in 1914, anyway.
But sometimes the choices are simpler. Sometimes you just need to make a choice that makes it easier to get out of bed the next day. Choose to make life a little better for yourself and those around you.
Thanks for reading.
Sincerely,
Brandon J. Seltenrich
P.S.––
Something that always makes me feel a sense of wonder in life is nature. I went on a series of hikes and walks in different areas of nature this past weekend, and felt a profound sense of peace on an existential level. Try it sometime soon if you think you might need it.
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