GOD HAD A PLAN FOR ME
A Lazy Person’s Guide to Finding Purpose in the Universe
People often rationalize adversity by saying, “Everything happens for a reason.” I sure hope not. I have a knack for screwing things up, but I’d hate to think that’s the reason I exist.
Some folks believe that literally every little thing that happens is part of divine plan. If so, God is an obsessive micromanager. I don’t understand how anybody finds comfort in believing there’s some providential reason for hair lice and toenail fungus.
In fourth grade catechism class, Father Zukowski told us that God’s plan was so immense that every time a butterfly fluttered its wings, it was part of His grand design. That scared the hell out of me because, well, like most pre-adolescent heterosexual boys, I sometimes expressed my confused masculinity by torturing insects. Once or twice, I may have ripped off a butterfly’s wings. Now I worried that I’d inadvertently triggered the chain reaction of events that caused the Kennedy assassination.
Evil Explained
The problem with believing everything happens for a reason is that shit happens. Attributing shit to God’s direct action seems impolite, not to mention theologically dubious, and possibly legally fraught.
Famine, plague, and natural disasters are referred to as “acts of God.” This seems to imply criminal intent, or at least culpable negligence. Is God immune from prosecution? It’d be difficult to try Him before a jury of peers. But perhaps he could be sued? If so, I’m ready to sign on to a class action lawsuit against Him for hitting us with COVID. I still haven’t got my sense of smell back.
God’s time-honored defense against all grievances is that He “works in mysterious ways,” which is the Almighty’s way of pleading the fifth.
In Praise of Apathy
I didn’t always believe that the universe was meaningless. I used to be much less optimistic.
In college, as a philosophy major, I was an angry nihilist. Today, I’m more of a laid-back absurdist. Enlightenment came with maturity, aided by the legalization of cannabis in my state.
It was a tremendous relief to let go of the belief in free will. As a kid, I never could quite grasp the Church’s teaching that God knew everything I would ever do, yet it was my own free choice to do it. That sounded like entrapment to me.
Catholic school taught me that when I failed at something, it’s my own fault, but it was also preordained according to divine plan so it was never going to work. My path to salvation was via defeat, humiliation, frustration, and, by default, celibacy. With lots of tithing, I might buy my way into Purgatory.
However, in the tradition of Saint Augustine, who said, “Lord, give me chastity — but not yet,” I fudged the rules. I came to realize that whereas all my efforts were in vain, good things happened to me when I did nothing. That’s why I went to college and majored in philosophy. As an added perk, I soon learned that philosophical girls are easy. I lost my virginity to a neo-Platonist.
Guaranteed pickup lines in any philosophical bar: “Plato must’ve had you in mind with his theory of ideal forms,” or “Let’s go back to my cave and cast some shadows on the wall.”
If you want to get paid for doing nothing, academia is the perfect place to hide, especially in the Humanities Department. Thinking deep thoughts is easy to fake because it looks exactly like doing nothing.
Mark Twain said nobody ever had an original thought. Ergo, scholars are just creative plagiarists. Philosophy is the art of recycling ancient ideas so they seem new again. I don’t tell this to my undergraduate students. They first have to pay their dues feeling stupid. Intellectual piracy is a skill they’ll master in graduate school.
Reflections on Randomness
After a long career doing nothing, I’ve come full circle. Now, I realize that everything does happen for a reason. It’s called quantum randomness. This is an extremely esoteric theory that can only be glimpsed through complex mathematics but at risk of over-simplifying allow me to summarize it for the layperson — shit happens.
That’s all the explanation I require. I’m living proof of it.
Personally, I feel right at home in an unknowable universe that’s in a constant state of arbitrary flux where existence is a fleeting aberration bereft of meaning or purpose but destined to an eventual eternity of extinction. It’s a lot like network television. As long as the universe still expands, so shall there be a new season of “Survivor.”
I’m retired now, and I can’t believe I got away with doing nothing all my life. Everything’s happened just like I never planned.
Gregg SAPP (hee/haw/haws) is the author of the “Holidazed” series of satires.
