The Algorithm of the Present Moment
One of my favorite movie scenes of all time is in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (one of the best movies ever) when Cate Blanchett's car collision accident is put into chronological rewind, leading you through the random string of events that led up to her getting hit. It is by far one of the most compelling scenes because in that moment you realize how a split second in time, a moment's hesitation, the tiniest distraction, could have changed the course of her life forever.
“Our lives are defined by opportunities, even the ones we miss.”
Lately I've been thinking about the series of events in life, both random and intentional, that lead up to the present moment. Although we like to believe that we are where we are due to personal control, decisions, and hard work, I truly think that there is a deeper, compelling, universal force that is always at work, stitching and binding us to other people who thereby shape both who we are and the course of our lives - whether we realize it or not. Call it destiny, or fate, but there are those moments in life that seem too perfectly strange, too perfectly random, too perfectly magical, to be mere coincidence. They are, in my opinion, the most beautiful moments in life.
A few I can recall in my own life include meeting the love of my life on an airplane. Meeting my best friend while studying abroad halfway across the world. The HR person at my dream company who read my resume and moments later ran into a recruiter needing someone with my exact background. I can only define these moments based on how utterly terrified they make me feel, because I know that a split second in time, a moment's hesitation, the tiniest distraction could have stopped that encounter or moment from happening - thereby changing the course of my life forever.
I believe that the present moment is an algorithm of external circumstances: where we are born, the environment we're born into, the household we grow up in; personal action: where we decide to live, who we decide to hang out with, what we choose to spend our time doing; and lastly, those more-than-just-coincidences in life that that were so intricately created.
Personally, I've learned that being grateful for the present moment is derived from an even deeper sense of gratitude for the challenging and beneficial circumstances that got me there; the motivation, drive and hard work that got me there; and the random chances that stitched everything together.
“Maybe it’s all utterly meaningless. Maybe it’s all unutterably meaningful. If you want to know which, pay attention to what it means to be truly human in a world that half the time we’re in love with and half the time scares the hell out of us. Any fiction that helps us pay attention to that is religious fiction. The unexpected sound of your name on somebody’s lips. The good dream. The strange coincidence. The moment that brings tears to your eyes. The person who brings life to your life. Even the smallest events hold the greatest clues.”
“Sometimes you meet someone, and it’s so clear that the two of you, on some level belong together. As lovers, or as friends, or as family, or as something entirely different. You just work, whether you understand one another, or you’re in love, or you’re partners in crime. You meet these people throughout your life, out of nowhere, under the strangest circumstances, and they help you feel alive. I don’t know if that makes me believe in coincidence, or fate, or sheer blind luck, but it definitely makes me believe in something.”