wil or nill

A man seeks his own destiny and no other, said the judge. Wil or nill. Any man who could discover his own fate and elect therefore some opposite course could only come at last to that selfsame reckoning at the same appointed time, for each man's destiny is as large as the world he inhabits and contains within it all opposites as well. The desert upon which so many have been broken is vast and calls for largeness of heart but it is also ultimately empty. It is hard, it is barren. Its very nature is stone.

- The Judge
from Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy.

Whoa nellie. This is one that I have struggled with for a long time. Fate vs. free will: a recurring theme in McCarthy's books, as well as East of Eden and my conversations with friends. I had one such conversation yesterday with good friend to this blog ExP (that's esquire to you!). I could not help but sit up last night, thinking about what we had discussed. But I have overthought the concept, my brain is fried and I am of no further use to the discussion today except for one comment. When the storm has chased us into the back of the closet we pray for a turn to fortune (fate). When we are high on our own achievements we walk alone (freewill). Maybe we all inside of us have the need to believe both, and just maybe it doesn't matter which is true. We are in control until we are out of control and so we should learn to operate under both scenarios. High or low, I guess we'll always be learning.
For more perspective, read East of Eden (warning this link contains text from the book).

Also, I am a big fan of Ken Arneson, the creator of the now defunct Baseball Toaster blog. Do yourself a favor some time and go back and read the last post on the old Baseball Toaster entitled And So to Fade Away. It's a sweeping post that reflects on his Swedish heritage, his life as a baseball fan, the great forum he created for talking baseball, it's collapse and his own reflections on moving on. It is a great piece of internet writing. Well, Jon Weisman (former Baseball Toaster writer) of the LA Times has a link today to Ken's new blog, and from the sounds of it it will be a doozy as it does not limit Ken to just baseball. "How do you choose a philosophy?" Are you kidding me? Let's follow along together.