“enjoy the little things in life, because one day you will look back and realise they were the big things.”
– kurt vonnegut
a saying goes, the devils in the details. is the last 20 percent worth it? the last 20 percent of anything. if you skip it, the last twenty years of your life, the last part of a conversation, the final push on a test to get that A? it depends on what your into and how you can deal with the outcome. life matters to people in the things that they personally are focused on at this moment. it never seemed that important, the last 20, so i was able to let go and hop onto something else. for others, they do not have this ability. they have to finish, the outcome matters differently. we do not have a choice in the matter.
the idea of predestination is something defined as:
the divine foreordaining of all that will happen, especially with regard to the salvation of some and not others. It has been particularly associated with the teachings of St. Augustine of Hippo and of Calvin.
augustine is later seen as referring to predestination as (per wikipedia)
Included in Augustine’s theodicy is the claim that God created humans and angels as rational beings possessing free will. Free will was not intended for sin, meaning it is not equally predisposed to both good and evil. A will defiled by sin is not considered as “free” as it once was because it is bound by material things, which could be lost or be difficult to part with, resulting in unhappiness. Sin impairs free will, while grace restores it. Only a will that was once free can be subjected to sin’s corruption.[142]
The Catholic Church considers Augustine’s teaching to be consistent with free will.[143] He often said that anyone can be saved if they wish.[143] While God knows who will and won’t be saved, with no possibility for the latter to be saved in their lives, this knowledge represents God’s perfect knowledge of how humans will freely choose their destinies
i see this as an assumption that we are like dominos, when you are born, we have already begun to fall. our physical makeup, our parents, the time we are in the world, have all been determined for us. the outcome, the choices, the future. good and evil are already in place, it simply impacts us different depending on the paths we are given.
there are anomalies and good sometimes comes out of bad, but these are rare. choice comes, but the choices are based off of realities that are already within us. we play the cards we are dealt, with the minds and resources at our disposal.
