I am interested about the difference between "fate" and "destiny."
I looked up "fate" in Wikipedia and found it doesn't have its own entry.
It's contained within the page for destiny. Briefly:
"Destiny may be envisaged as fore-ordained by the Divine (for example, the
Protestant <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant> concept of
predestination <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predestination> ) or by human
will (for example, the American concept of Manifest Destiny
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_Destiny> ). A sense of destiny in
its oldest human sense is in the soldier's fatalistic
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatalism> image of the "bullet that has your
name on it" or the moment when your number "comes up," or a romance that was
"meant to be." Many people believe destiny is a fixed timeline of events
that is inevitable and unchangeable. Others believe that they choose their
own destiny by choosing different paths throughout their life.
"Although the words are used interchangeably, fate and destiny are distinct
things. Modern usage defines fate as a power or agency that predetermines
and orders the course of events. The definition of fate has it that events
are ordered or "meant to be". Fate is used in regard to the finality of
events as they have worked themselves out, and that same finality is
projected into the future to become the inevitability of events as they will
work themselves out. Fate also has a morbid association with finality in the
form of "fatality". Destiny, or fate, used in the past tense is "one's lot"
and includes the sum of events leading up to a currently achieved outcome
(e.g. "it was her destiny to be leader", "it was his fate to be executed").
Fate is an outcome determined by an outside agency acting upon a person or
entity; but with destiny the entity is participating in achieving an outcome
that is directly related to itself. Participation
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participation_%28decision_making%29> happens
willfully."
In reading this over, it does not align with the way I use the term "fate"
in doing Constellations. I generally don't speak of "destiny" at all.
I see destiny as the aggregation of systemic forces and individual
consciousness that coalesce in each moment of the present. To use an
extreme example, a suicide is the vast past coming together an instant. One
might call the trajectory of events "destiny." In this view, destiny could
be defined as "everything that came before and led to this moment." While
there is systemic ordering at play, I do not see destiny as inevitable or
unchangeable in the sense of being fore-ordained. I do not see anything
being fore-ordained.
Fate begins where destiny ends. "It was his fate to be executed," is a
statement of fact, grounded in past events that are not subject to change or
alteration. Fate does not require an outside agency or entity. When I
speak of "acceptance of fate," I speak agnostically in regard to the cause.
I mean only that what happened, happened, and however distasteful,
disturbing, or unjust it cannot be changed.
Perhaps some of you can share how you use and understand these terms.
Dan
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