Note: This is a passage from the book "Winter's Tale" by Mark Helprin. Actually,
it is toward the end of the book and has nothing to do with the tale that was
being told. I saw this passage quoted in a book by Dr. Wayne Dyer, "You'll See
it When You Believe It."
For me it crystalized the idea of synchronicity. I had to read it several times and
"chew on it" awhile before it really "sank in", but when it finally did, an entirely
new perspective opened up for me. I hope you will find it just as intriguing.
Nothing is Random
Nothing is random, nor will anything ever be, whether a long string of perfectly blue days that begin and end in golden
dimness, the most seemingly chaotic political acts, the rise of a great city, the crystalline structure of a gem that
has never seen the light, the distributions of fortune, what time the milkman gets up, the position of the electron,
or the occurrence of one astonishingly frigid winter after another.
Even electrons, supposedly the paragons of
unpredictability, are tame and obsequious little creatures that rush around at the speed of light, going precisely where
they are supposed to go. They make faint whistling sounds that when apprehended in varying combinations are as pleasant as the
wind flying through a forest, and they do exactly as they are told. Of this, one can be certain.
And yet there is a wonderful anarchy, in that the milkman chooses when to arise, the rat picks the tunnel into which he will dive when
the subway comes rushing down the track from Borough Hall, and the snowflake will fall as it will. How can this be? If
nothing is random, and everything is predetermined, how can there be free will? The answer to that is simple.
Nothing is predetermined; it is determined, or was determined, or will be determined. No matter, it all happened at once, in less than
an instant, and time was invented because we cannot comprehend in one glance the enormous and detailed canvas that we have been
given - so we track it, in linear fashion, piece by piece. Time, however, can be easily overcome; not by chasing light, but by
standing back far enough to see it all at once.
The universe is still and complete. Everything that ever was, is; everything that ever will be, is - and
so on, in all possible combinations. Though in perceiving it we imagine that it is in motion, and unfinished, it is quite finished and quite
astonishingly beautiful.
In the end, or rather, as things really are, any event, no matter how small, is intimately and sensibly tied to all others. All
rivers run full to the sea; those who are apart are brought together; the lost ones are redeemed; the dead come back to life; the perfectly blue days that have begun
and ended in golden dimness continue, immobile and accessible; and, when all is perceived in such a way as to obviate time, justice becomes apparent not as something that will be,
but as something that is.
Inspiration Pointe | Matters of the Spirit
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