life's lineage

i am linda hamilton, carving into the wood in "the terminator": NO FATE. i don't believe in predestination. not exactly.

i do believe in the necessity of the placement of events in my past to produce the current configuration of my life. now, were i to believe in some guiding force placing those events in my life, i'd be saying i believed in fate. i can (and in my mind, often do) draw a very simple line from Where I Am Now to A Big Major Turning Point that happened not so long ago.

(In thinking a bit before writing this I realize that I could trace the chain of events back further to my choice of employment after graduation, however, i think no matter which job i accepted (and only one of my offers was for the bay area) i would have required the sort of Big Major Turning Point that I experienced not so long ago to divert my path from where it was heading post-college. depending on whether i believe in fate at the time of my analysis, i could go either way on whether i'd have met 203 had i taken the job in boulder or san diego, but i can say without a shred of doubt that had it not been for the BMTP i would not have met 203 at all in the bay area, and, had i miraculously somehow met her, it nonetheless would not have mattered, on account of it was the BMTP that allowed me to progress to the stage where she'd be interested in me.

unless, of course, i were to believe in fate and soul mates -- in which case i'd have to say that not only would we have met no matter what path i'd taken out of college, we'd also have managed somehow to have the connection we've got now, even without the transformation in me that came about as a result of the BMTP. or, if i were to believe in reincarnation and follow a line of thought that i heard once on a hike, we'd have met and known something was up, but i would have had to wait until another life to have her.

so what do i believe? depends.)

It goes a little something like this:

1 - got really sick
2 - happened upon someone in the office (no less fatedly than the happening upon 203, it seems fair to say) who was a sympathetic talker upon subjects of great interest
3 - said someone introduced me to the evil smith machine and instructed me in the performance of the squat (that's the big one there, the heart of the BMTP)
4 - i got myself in shape
5 - my self esteem burgeoned
6 - i started dating
7 - i started hiking
8 - on account of my squatting i could hike well right outta the box
9 - also nearly right outta the box, i met 203

the rest (and the aforementioned, for that matter) is history, but the point is that in the absence of any of the preceding 8 events, and the implied but not explicitly stated event 6.5, event 9 would not have happened. it's weird to think of my life in that way, and i marvel at it all still, because other events in my life are not so dependent on such a precise set of discrete events. the college i went to, the job i took, where i decided to live -- all these things, though very important and influential in my life -- cannot be traced across a path so brightly lit, and certainly do not depend on such a long chain.

so once upon a time i learned how to squat, and now with hindsight i can see that it was a Big Major Turning Point. so what? asks the inattentive or new reader. let me show you with 2000 words:

before

after

which of those guys do you think was more popular with the ladies?

nevermind looks. which do you think had a more interesting mind? which has the more genuine smile? which one believes in himself?

i am genetically, constitutionally, and culturally predisposed to being a lot more like the first guy than the second. i'm never willingly going back, now, but i'm still predisposed. it's a battle for me, but fortunately i enjoy the battle. being in the sort of shape where i could hike convincingly changed my life. that's all there is to it. and to get to that point, i had to learn how to squat.

now, i have an artifact in my possession, hanging on my wall, to be precise. i was looking at it this morning and realized something: if i were in the sort of mood where i'd speculate about which items in my home are "magical" or "enchanted", this would be first on my list. no matter what you want to call it -- mojo, the force, vibes, spirit -- this thing's infused with it. and the reason that it's so full of strange, mysterious power in a way that probably nothing else in my house is, is that it's not a symbol, it's not a representation, it's not a reminder of an important thing or event in my life. it's not a pointer (heh) to a turning point (turningp_t *, heh), it is a turning point. it's number 10 in the list above.

i've got other such things in my posession, i suppose. we could speak of my tent, my backpack, my hiking shoes, all of which have been with me during excellent times as well as bad times. we could mention my booth and bar, which have accumulated the sweat and witnessed the effort that took me from number 4 above all the way to the as-yet-undefined number 10. we could speak of certain books, certain computer programs, certain words, certain phrases, certain people. certainly, all of these have had influence -- some great -- on my life. but none were turning points.

the map up on my wall, with the handwritten suggestion that i, in a burst of un-me-ness, dared to follow, is an actual object around which my life pivoted. there is nothing else that i possess of which i can say the same.

now, my forebears imparted to me a strong aversion to idol worship (though i have very little objection to goddess worship, luckily for 203 ;) so despite my insane rantings about "the force" and "mojo" dwelling in this map, i don't intend to make sacrafices to it or give it a name or dance naked in a circle around it (well, that last bit, actually, i do that). nonetheless, when i set my eyes upon it, it usually gives me a shiver.

spookly.