Your destiny's two dollars

A few weeks ago, I was working on my sociology homework, creating a definition list for whatever chapter we were working on. I came to Comte’s law of three stages that looks at how humanity develops their philosophies over time. How people categorize their phenomena is always interesting to me, but what’s more, Comte’s three stages seemed to apply directly to me, individually, as well.

1. The theological stage – where humanity attributes everything to a God or object. This was a relatively short period for me, since I was raised in the absence of God. I did, throughout elementary school and middle school, offer up insincere prayers to some random deity. Not because I expected something to happen, but more because my true teacher in philosophy, pop culture, told me that I should.

2. The metaphysical stage – where humanity attributes everything to forces or energy in the universe. I spent most of my life in this stage. As a child, with no God, I always was a believer in karma, destiny, chance, fate, Astrology, numerology, etc. I felt that there were patterns in the universe and if I just looked enough, I could find them. I found myself attaching a lot of significance to superstitions and my perceived organization of the universe.

3. The positivistic stage – where humanity turns to science and rationality and attributes everything to an underlying scientific theory, one that is testable and repeatable. Oddly enough, I always thought I was in this stage, being a believer in evolution and such, but only very recently did I really begin to break away and look for the science in everything. The more schooling I subjected myself to, the more I began to demand proof for everything.

My psychology class taught me it is human nature to assign patterns where none exist. To be honest, I rejected many of my metaphysical beliefs because I didn’t want to do what humanity did. I didn’t want to be subject to the same rules. I began to imagine that I could escape humanity. Since I was working on a boring degree, full of boring classes, I didn’t assume that I would encounter any damaging philosophies that pulled me back into “the human network.” Please, don’t sue, Cisco.

I figured my Film Trilogy class was safe. I thought of trilogies in an epic, macro, American way. I thought trilogies would cover epic, macro, American concepts like capitalism, militarism, national pride, etc. The first and third weekends were The Godfather and Terminator trilogies, respectfully. They promised to be exactly what I was looking for (and the Godfather was). The middle week was a complete departure, the three colors trilogy: blue, white and red (ou les trois colours: bleu, blanc, et rouge). The whole point of these films is personal, human connection and interconnection. It made fate and destiny seem not only inescapable, but appealing. I started thinking back to all the movies and books I had read that informed my belief system. I realized that I liked, to some degree, having that metaphysical stuff to fall back on. I liked trying to find the patterns of the universe, and I feel better, if maybe only for a placebo effect, when I think my life is powered by some whirring, mechanized, fate machine/cappuccino maker.

So, in homage to my embrace of my movie created, rose tinted world, here are some of my favorite destinies from the silver screen and books.

1. Only You (the Marisa Tomei/Robert Downey Jr. version, not the Kelly Preston/Andrew McCarthy version (an abomination (ooh Nested Parentheses!))). I just really liked the connection between Faith and Peter. Plus, it was the first movie I saw where people connected over Rilke (hello Kissing Jessica Stein). Specific to this discussion, I always like the scene where Peter asks the shriveled Italian man if he credits destiny. The man, who previously claimed ‘non parlano inglese,’ tells Peter that it is written on the stars.

2. Can’t Hardly Wait. I adore Ethan Embry and Seth Green and never more than in this movie. Two great quotes about destiny – one courtesy of Jenna Elfman’s stripper Angel and one courtesy of Lauren ‘Claire Fisher’ Ambrose. “Fate! It totally exists, but it only takes you so far. Then it's up to you to make it happen.” “Just judging from my little experience last night, I do think there's such a thing as fate. It just works in really fucked-up ways sometimes.”

3. Amelie. I heart this movie. I loved seeing truly damaged, frightened people finding their true love. Needless to say, it gave me hope. I always thought distributors did a disservice to the American moviegoer by simplifying its title. I think more people would have flocked to see The Fabulous Destiny of Amelie Poulain. Conversely, it probably would have driven more American moviegoers from the theaters trying to figure out why they had paid money to read. I love this movie. Quinze!

4. Microserfs, by Douglas Coupland. Again, my favorite line of all time about the patterns governing the universe. “Ethan said randomness is a useful shorthand for describing a pattern that's bigger than anything we can hold in our minds. Letting go of randomness is one of the hardest decisions a person can make.”

5. I’m going to have to add Red to this list. I love the idea of our destiny being right under our noses. Something we see every day and don’t recognize. I likened, in my head and now here, to a navigation system. When you take a wrong turn, the navigation system has to reconstruct your route for you. I like to think fate might be working the same way. We can try to escape our fate and we may think we have, but we are just temporarily detoured.

6. Happenstance. The original French title is Le Battement d'ailes du Papillon (the beating of wings of the butterfly). This movie probably came out about the same time as The Butterfly Effect here in the states. They are both based on the idea that a butterfly flapping its wings in one ocean will cause a hurricane in another, or something like that. Happenstance was much better than the Ashton Kutcher vehicle (which was seriously flawed). I liked Happenstance because it rewarded astute viewers and, through all the seemingly unconnected events, the two people hook up in the end.

I’m sure I have forgotten something, but I have been at this for a while, and it is already quite lengthy.

Just five more days until I can have a Pepsi and a Iced Venti De-Caf Caramel Macchiato, obviously not at the same time.