A great Japanese warrior named Nobunaga decided to attack the enemy although he had only one-tenth the number of men the opposition commanded. He knew that he would win, but his soldiers were in doubt.

On the way he stopped at a Shinto shrine and told his men: "After I visit the shrine I will toss a coin. If heads comes, we will win; if tails, we will lose. Destiny holds us in her hand."

Nobunaga entered the shrine and offered a silent prayer. He came forth and tossed a coin. Heads appeared. His soldiers were so eager to fight that they won their battle easily.

"No one can change the hand of destiny," his attendant told him after the battle.

"Indeed not," said Nobunaga, showing a coin which had been doubled, with heads facing either way.

[Robyn]

I would concur with the apparent sentiment in this story. One makes one's own destiny.

But did he create his destiny? Or did he hurry himself to meet his fate?

[Robyn]

To quote a favorite movie of mine,

"There is no fate but what we make."
-John Connor of the future

I'm all for believing in destiny.

It takes away all responsibility for our actions.

I'm not a bad person, I was destined to do what I do. Ain't my fault, nope.

Just don't wash true though, does it?

But what if it's your destiny to be martyred?

Doesn't that require someone else to accept the destiny of martyring you?

If your destiny depends on the decision of another, and they're free to make that decision, it really isn't your destiny to accept or reject, is it?

Naw. Either everything's preordained or we make our own choices and are responsible for them. I don't see no middle ground here.

Just a quick stop. My Brotherhood is firmly entrenched in Southeast Asia currently, if all goes as planned I will brief the society in the next few days. Please forgive.

In my homeland we have a saying, "To meet one's fate he need but remain at home; to find one's destiny is as easy as going to the far side of the valley."

Fate is the end that finds us.

Destiny is the end we go in search of.

Tranquility find you when she can.

Yeah, that's a nice parable and all.

But it don't actually prove nothing.

I've seen enough people meet their 'fate' to know that 'destiny' had nothing to do with it.

Otherwise, it would be my destiny to be the hand of fate.

Except I know there ain't some cosmic will pulling the trigger.

Clairty Grace wrote:Hi, Nemesis. I don’t think we get to choose our destinies. We can only choose what to do with them.

God kid,

I hope you're right.

Ah, Dr. Boggs.

Unfortunately, I couldn't agree more.

Hope for me?

Damn, I hope not.

I sleep quite well at night right now. If there's hope for me, then that means I gotta get a conscience. I heard they can interfere with your beauty sleep.

So what I'm gathering here is that Miss Solstice would like for me to lose some sleep (and here I was thinking she was one of the nice ones) and that Mr. Caliburn figures it ain't what you done in the past but what you're doing now that matters.

Am I right?

Mr. Caliburn,

You have my respect, for what it's worth. You may be many things, but you don't strike me as a hypocrite.

Miss Solstice,

Having a heart can get you dead in my line of work. So it's something of a catch 22. Either way, you're dead.

But we all wind up that way sooner or later. How ain't fate though, just the natural result of our own decisions. I'm either going to get killed trying to fill a contract, get executed, have a contract put out on me or pass away queitely in a Cayman Islands mansion.

In another thread, Miss Solstice, you said that you knew all you needed to about me. If you don't mind me asking, what did you mean by that?

As shown in this very parable, destiny only ever is, only ever has been and only ever can be a way to manipulate that masses or to claim divine providence after the fact.

What we do and how we influence others is what is important. Everything else is poppycock.

I believe in destiny.

I also beleive that destiny can be changed.

In my earlier post, I quoted my grandfather, Wei Hu Feng:

Chen Lung wrote:"To meet one's fate he need but remain at home; to find one's destiny is as easy as going to the far side of the valley."

In the end, humans all die (I hope to someday), but the question is: Do you sit idly by and let the problems and challenges of the rest of the world pass you by, or do you strive to make a change in the world? After you are dead, your memory will last on if you had an impact; otherwise you will fade like all other inconsequential things.

It is human fate to do nothing more than live and die; it is one's destiny to strive to be remembered. Do nothing, be nothing to human history; do something remarkable, be a turning point in human history.

- Wei Hu Feng was a general of great regard and yet his name is only remembered by myself. (His was fate.)
- Wei Jia, my grandfather's cousin, was the last king of the State of Wei and is remembered by all of the people of Wei even to this day for his loss of the state to the Qin. (His was a Destiny)
- However, my (several great) great grandnephew, Wei Fang, became chancellor to the Empress and he was executed in exile due to his bad behavior toward her nephews. He is famous for his quote: "Life and death are all determined by heaven. How can a real man prostrate himself to flatter imperial relatives just to avoid disaster?" (His was destiny, regardless of his own fatalism.)

Fate/Destiny? You will die -- what matters is how you live your life and whether others will ever remember you.

So, your destiny is what you do, basically. Whatever choices you make, and the results of those choices, are your true destiny. Whatever it was you decide to do, you're fated to do as a matter of course. So, I guess meeting your destiny is a lot easier than I thought.

Wei Hu Feng? The general who had the monk that in my homeland became known as Jinko exiled for speaking against the emperor of the land of the setting sun's policies? I owe the man who had Jinko exiled from the land of the setting sun a very great debt - Jinko was the master who took me in, ignoring the deeds that had been done by my hands. Jinko, who on a quiet night told me of the justice of his exile, was my Master, it was he who turned me from the path of blood and blade, to walk in the light of the Dharma.


What use is this talk of destiny? Why do we all seek to either understand the past, or predict that which will come? Why is it that it is so hard for us to live NOW, instead thinking about things that have been done and cannot be undone, while the pleasures of life all around us slip into the past where we cannot truely have them again?

i've always thought that everyone has at least one thing they are destined to do,

A grim example:

your a hired killer,heartless and cold,your cover is blown on an assignment and you must make a fast escape,
your running down a hall way when a teen pops up at the end of the hall,he knew you were in that place for an assassination,so he calls for guards,

so you kill him...

months later you have come to realize that you killed an innocent person,
it terrorizes your dreams and you have a revelation to quit that line of work,after this you become legit and join the lapd or something,and on the force you save a child from being shot in a gang cross fire,

the point is,if you never killed the teen,you never would have FELT remorse,never would have joined the force,and never would have saved the child...

it's not a happy feeling to know that you might have to die one day,
but it some may feel better knowing that they can still make a difference in someones life with your own sacrifices...

Immortality has its price sometimes its worth it to pay it.