Wait until you see what happens next

Starry Night Over the Rhone by Vincent van Gogh.
An infinity of stars suggests an infinity of choices.

This entry is dedicated to the memory of Mike Edwards.

Lately I have been reminded that life has many lessons to teach me. I may have been guilty of thinking that so far as my own life goes, I'd got things sorted. Not necessarily that I knew it all, but certainly that I understood roughly how all the different pieces fitted together.

I was wrong, of course. My sense of equilibrium, my feeling that my life was being lived in harmony, was knocked sideways by events over which I had no control. And that idea - of control - is one of the big illusions in life. Oh sure, we can decide to have another cup of coffee, drive a different route to work, or aim for the pinnacles of success in politics or business or whatever, but the truth is that there are so many other factors in this thing we call life that can determine the outcome of what we set out to do.

There are no guarantees in life that the choices we make will be the right ones and, in any case, how could we know that they were? We cannot, we just make a choice, hope, and see events unfold during which time we will make more choices and more events will unfold.

Which brings me to Mike Edwards. He was the cellist with the Electric Light Orchestra back in the 1970s, but he left to follow other musical interests. He also worked as a delivery driver which was how he came to be driving a van along a road in South Devon when a massive round bale of hay rolled down the hillside, hit the van and killed him. A few seconds either way in his journey, or if the hay bale had been placed slightly differently, and maybe none of it would have happened.

In other words, choices were made, the outcomes of which were not what were expected or hoped for. We follow certain courses of action, hoping or believing that things will be all right, but sometimes, often, (or even always) the result is different.

And that is how it is for all of us, which should at the very least make us all a bit more humble and less ready to condemn as we try to find our way through life. I know it has for me.