• Why did my 5-year old get leukemia, wail from the pain and die unquietly?

• Why did his last remaining son get car bombed on his way to work?

• Why did her brother believe that he was cleansing his doors of perception when he drank lye and burned holes in his veins and melted his organs?

• Why did my mom spend 14 years in a coma never to wake up?

• Why did the 5 foot 4 English teacher stand up to his 6 foot 3 son-in-law for beating his daughter only to have his body found buried in the woods?

• Why did she have to leave her home at 16 to pick up enough body parts, stuff them into a Red Cross sack, and convince the ones in charge that it was a whole person so they could take another wounded into the tent?

Is there a reason for these things?

Of course, say the believers. Look to the 3rd law of thermodynamics or attachment disorder or transgression against God or lateral movements across longitudes or level 3 severity DSM-5 borderline PD or Yahweh’s wrath or migration patterns or the curse of Canaan or gravity or bad luck.

• Why did he risk and lose his own life to save a stranger?

• Why does she spend what little she has to secretly make and hand out sandwiches with love notes to the hungry?

• Why does he call for his people to forgive them those who have taken everything they hold most dear and more away?

• Why does she counsel the dying with joy while her own body is ravaged with an excoriating cancer?

• Why does he with no legs who has taken lives work tirelessly to teach children how to grow food?

How do we make sense?

No one is untouched by sorrow, uncaressed by suffering. Yet every day we the people planet are graced with innumerable unprofitable acts of sublime generosity and kindness.

Nothing happens for a reason. There are no reasons.

The only purpose for why anything that happens in this world is so we can tell the tale.

Parables and anecdotes

Of horror and delight

Of losing and loving

become webs

of thought

cause entire systems

of belief

to arise.

We may think one system is better than another because of proof or faith, but all of it all comes down to one thing: underneath the bleeding and the teething is the story.

Wait for nothing

Don't wait for anything

Life simply happens

However, you are the one to give it course

We live our entire lives waiting for something

But we don't realize that

When we don't expect anything,

Circumstances and destiny were the ones

Looking for us

Wait for nothing

Don't wait to obtain something back from others

Just wait for nothing

Take responsibility of your own actions

And never disturb the flow of others lives

Unless it is for love or natural death

Wait for nothing

And live the present

The past is dead and the future does not exist

There are more than a thousand reasons to say

Anything happens for a reason

But reasons don't mean anything

In a life that is already taken its course

Everything is predetermined

However, this does not mean that you're following a script

You are allowed to improvise

You are allowed to make this a comedy or a tragedy

Please don't make it a drama

Make it a journey

A journey to Nirvana

Through the mountains or the beach

Escape Samsara

In the end, you'll know what I meant

We never look for reasons for something that happens

In the same sense we don't look for death

Or we don't decide to look for someone to love

But any of those always end up walking by our own stroll

Wait for nothing

Enjoy what you have

Write poetry to love

Read poetry to live

Make others read you poems

Teach them to read them once you're gone

Life is poetry

And life

Waits for nothing

It already happened.

DA 2015

On the quantum level, particles act differently when observed and when not observed. It is believed the observed differences is due to what the observer believes is going to happen influencing the behavior of the particle. These experiments show how we subconsciously control our environment.

When an event occurs that we do not understand we try to explain it within the realm of our understanding. An example would be the spread of illness. Prior to the knowledge of bacteria it was believed that illness was caused by an angry God for your sins or because you were cursed by someone wicked. We now know this isn't the reason but at the time it made perfect sense to those claiming this was the case.

Therefore, I believe it is us who search for reasons to what happens in our lives. In an attempt to make sense of things we do not understand, bring closure, find peace, and nurture hope for the future. There is something reassuring in the thought of karma - someone bad getting what they deserve, eventually. Just as there is something comforting in finding a reason that something bad happened to someone who is a good person.

Finding the reasons that something has happened gives the illusion that it happened for a reason.

Confounded by nostalgia.

How I feel.

The breeze doesn't make it

any easier.

My heart

a blade of grass.

There's got to be a reason.

We can't just be two cars

on a dark road,

no headlights,

head on.

There may be no

divine intervention.

There is no outline

carefully plotted.

Make no mistake.

I am the result of my actions.

This world,

the result of billions.

Nature makes no mistakes,

just gives reactions.

Vinegar and baking soda.

Cola and pop rocks.

The way a smile makes

you feel.

Raisin fingerprints from

soaking in the tub.

Killing and dying.

A wet cunt.

Trial and error.

Over and over and over.

We are smart.

We are selectively bred to

value symmetry.

We love nature.

We worship her patterns.

We call them God and

see ourselves as

Legos and Lincoln Logs.

Moveable and changeable.

Malleable in the hands of

something greater.

But if your house catches fire,

it will all just burn.

Oxygen is just there.

There is nothing absolute.

There is not a never.

The truth is nary

the answer to

just one question.

It is a five way intersection.

The light is long,

and no one wants to

take their turn.

Eventually some asshole

will cause a fender bender.

Nature makes no mistakes.

It is hard to draw a line of causality past a few leading events. I bought a sandwich because I was hungry, but I also haven't had a sandwich in a while, and I went to the specific place because I remember it was good. Many things happen because of many reasons, but we like to see a few that make the most sense for us.

Physics is great to invoke for this because obviously things happen because of something else, but there does not need to be a purpose. Two topics lend themselves to this discussion well, quantum mechanics and cosmology--two fields that are ever more entwined each year.

The uncertainty principle is much lauded and has created many useful inventions in technology and physics, but is misleading when expanded out from the quantum world. Do we change the world by looking at it--observing it? Not necessarily. We need to carefully examine what occurs when we "observe" things in the quantum world.

Electrons encase atomic nuclei in clouds of probable energy states as described through Schrödinger's equations. When we look at these electrons, we can use a high energy photon to find it's location, but change its momentum--so our observation changed the electron's behavior greatly! Well, our method of observing changed the electron's behavior. If we were not present and a random photon bumped into the electron, a similar result would occur--we wouldn't know, but there is no reason to expect human consciousness to change the electron's behavior when it is the photon that does so.

Does the moon exist when we don't look? This is an obvious exaggeration of this occurrence, but it serves well to show my point. Obviously the moon will always exist--it is a mass of atoms that are all localizing each other so there is no room for quantum unpredictability. Let's imagine it acted as one large particle that needed to be "observed" to exist. You close your eyes at night, look up, and open. There is the moon. Did it just start existing the minute you opened your eyes? No--you see it right as your eyes open, but light takes a second to go from the moon to Earth. This would mean that the moon would have had to exist a second before you opened your eyes and know exactly when to localize to a specific point, and similarly it would cease to exist a second before you closed your eyes. If its existence depended on when the photons hit your eyes, you could look at the moon and close your eyes for a second, then open them, and you wouldn't see the moon for a second, which obviously does not happen.

The point of this is that things happen outside of our actions and the quantum world is not beholden to us. We CAN affect things with our actions, but it is not solely our actions that affect the quantum world.

As for cosmology--as far as we know the universe exists and in such a state that we are able to live. There does not need to be a purpose for all of this, but it is not difficult to see how it could be probable for there to be an underlying purpose.

In summary things happen for a reason, but those things are not dependent on us.

We like to think of ourselves as an advanced society do we not? We are tech savvy and up to the minute in our tablets and hotspots. We are connected and linked and able to voice opinions and post up to the minute video commentary on any current event.

But despite this we still look to horoscopes, people still flock to clairvoyants for mystic fortune telling and tarot cards sell by the truck load. We still lean to our palm readers and come away feeling in some esoteric way connected to an 'other worldly' force that glows above us and guides our days.

Bunkum. Total, complete and utter tosh. All of it. Of course, everything happens for a reason and you don't need some soothsayer to glam it up. If I put my hand into a fire it will be burnt, but not because some cosmic deity deems it, but because that's what fire does.

Listen, if you are the type of person drawn to visit fortune tellers or attend psychic readings - don't. Don't give these people your money, save it and realise that absolutely everything happens for a reason, it is called the nature of things, and I defy anyone to stand up and tell me what is going to happen to me next week.

I'll meet a tall, dark man carrying an umbrella. Yes. Right. Keep taking the tablets.

May as well ask the bloody dog for all the sense you'll get.

Cause and Effect are facts. Reason is often a human delusion, but nevertheless, an important part in understanding. I believe in the infinite, and therefore, alternate realities, where every possibility exists in some corner of the quantum consciousness. In this, I also believe that we can observe and sense the connections that lead us to the conclusion of reason. It's part of how we make sense of experience, because we're self-aware enough to consider what might have been. This isn't a misunderstanding, but a step in our evolution.

When we seek out reason, we expose ourselves to the evidence of cause and effect. We become in tune with the dominoes that shape the reality we live in. It's really quite something, but often discounted. Yet, something that helps round-out our perspective. Not just because we feel connected to the world that affects us, but because we get a better picture of the effects we, ourselves, cause. Everything has an impact, because energy can neither be created, nor destroyed, and it's in our observations and explorations that we see how energy transforms.

So, I believe the answer is "yes" to the question: "Does everything happen for a reason, or do we look for a reason that everything that happens?" Everything happens for a reason, and we look for those reasons because we know they are there, and the key to evolving with them. We just have to believe in ourselves, our abilities, and to explore, and observe our individual realities. I believe reason is the understanding that keeps us moving. Our mistake is in thinking anything is mutually exclusive.

- M.E.

201505191747

I like to think of myself as a fatalist. Fatalism is 'the belief that all events are predetermined and therefore inevitable'. Every decision that you make leads up to one ultimate destination- no matter what, you're going to end up at this event that was destined to happen. No matter what. Or at least I tell myself that.

I guess you could say that I think everything happens for a reason. Maybe it's to push you in the right direction toward your unchangeable event. Maybe it's for something else, but whatever it may be, it happened for some reason or other.

My views on these things are always changing, circulating, circumnavigating and all that wonderful jazz. Oh, and fluctuating.

I suppose that believing in these things just comforts you. It lets you take the blame off of yourself and helps you relieve guilt. At least this way, if you fuck up too badly, you know you're still going to end up at the same spot as if you hadn't fucked up.

So to wrap up my little monologue, I truly, deep down, think that nothing happens for a reason, and people only think that for comfort. But like an overbearing fog, the thought that everything is predetermined lingers.

Destiny and free will are not mutually exclusive;

the egghead set will blather otherwise.

Let’s let ’em think that.

Everything happens for a reason,

because your personal story commands it.

You don’t hafta strain for reasons;

they’re right in your face.

If you dare stay on-map of this prescribed destiny,

your course will be dull and lifeless,

monochromatic and bland,

yet mathematically consistent and true.

[[Witness poet sticking finger down his throat, rocket-vomiting breakfast.]]

Your grand opus of destiny is written in

the laws of celestiophysics, creation and the universe,

all of which sparked and fired your DNA at conception,

a full nine months before you exited mommy’s vag.

Way more cool is the renegade alternative:

by willful intent or by underhanded crook, stray off-map and

your path will be dark and slippery,

and your learning curve steep and treacherous.

Rockets of adrenaline and rivers of terror

will be your trusted companions.

[[Poet: “Yeee-fucken-hawww!”]]

Every quantoretto within each atom and molecule,

tissue and being, rock and mountain,

moon and planet, star and sun

will impart its sui generis nature.

[[Poet bounces off the walls, a crazed electron. “Cowabunga, ma’fuckas!"]]

It will write a festive, Turing-code of

tangled appendages and fuzzy logic,

paint a richly colored and textured

background and atmosphere.

[[Poet erupts in giant flames, fireworks shooting to the blue heavens.]]

Ahhh, but the choice is yours, M’Love!

Knowing that reasons and causes are predestined.

And actively searching for answers and reasons

is a coin toss:

swimming in lightning and

drinking from the sun. . . .

Fortune. Good luck or bad. Real or perceived?

I've never seen a lottery winner, during an interview, pleading WHY?" But when a tornado blows through town, everyone's looking for answers.

It's human nature, I suppose - this need to make sense of whatever scares us, hurts us, cheats us. They call it "closure." The peace is in the knowing, apparently. And I suppose it can help. But for me, the real closure is accepting that, sometimes, it just is what it is. Random, awful, wonderful, glorious things can, and do, happen for no reason. Trying to sort it all out comes from a need for control. That's what makes no sense, if you ask me. Let me give you a perfect example:

It was early afternoon, on October 29, 2012. You may not remember the date, but I assure you, you remember the storm: Hurricane Sandy (or Frankenstorm, or Superstorm, or whatever you want to call it). While the rest of us were battening down the hatches, securing patio furniture, and getting in one last walk of the dog...my neighbor ("Jorge") was in his driveway using his leaf blower. Huh?

I though to myself, "Helloooo? Hurricane a comin'!" "He's daft," I said to my friend, Donato. "Crazy!"

Donato, a psychologist, had a more eloquent explanation: when fear strikes (or anxiety or uncertainty), some people act out by trying to control their environment.

How do you control a hurricane? You don't. With winds up to 115 mph, and 233 fatalities, it's pretty clear that some things happen for no reason at all and there's not a damn thing you can do about them. And they'll never make sense.

And just in case you had any doubt, that leaf blowing turned out to be a fool's errand, indeed. Trees fell all over our neighborhood. One of them landed smack in the middle of Jorge's driveway.