The Elfin Blog

As I was sitting yesterday, locked out of my girlfriend’s house with three hours of time staring me in the face before anyone would get home to let me in, I got thinking about how certain events in life have a more profound effect on the course of our existence than others. For example, as I was sitting, staring at the wood grain of my lovely girlfriend’s back deck, I noticed, and then smushed, a red ant. It occurred to me that this ant would almost certainly not have met his demise in that manner had I not locked myself out of the house. After much deliberation and tracing of events backward, I concluded that the event that lead most directly to this unexpected change in the course of my day was when I actually shut the door that was locked from the inside. This event, and not the placing of my keys on the kitchen table, or even the start of my relationship with my girlfriend, most directly lead to me being locked out. I found all of this very interesting because it seems to me that no matter how much backtracking one does, there is always one single event, or choice, or action that most directly leads to a change in the course of one’s life. Would World War II have started if Chamberlain had not given the Sudetenland to Hitler? Would I have been locked out had I not started dating my girlfriend? In both cases one could easily say ‘maybe not.’ In the case of my locking myself out it is easier to see the single event that lead to it than in the case of Chamberlain being a pussy, but the theory, I think, is sound. As in physics, every action leads to another. No matter how hard we look for more, there will always be just one cause for any given range of effects. This all leads me to the point that I have been pondering.

My mother said to me the other day, “It’s hard, sometimes, being bright and educated because you have so many choices and possibilities before you that it all can become very confusing.” I fancy myself to be both fairly bright and reasonably educated and I find this statement to be true. I really think that my life would be considerably easier if fewer options were presented to me because I would not have to constantly sit around trying to figure out if Chamberlain caused World War II. I could just accept what was, make a choice or two, and live with the result.

Now don’t get me wrong. I enjoy and rejoice in the fact that I have been blessed with better than average intelligence and opportunity, and I would not dare to say that someone who is less fortunate than I has an easier life by way of fewer options. All I am saying is that, at times, having fewer choices, which can mean having a simpler existence, isn’t all bad. I bet Chamberlain wouldn’t have minded either.

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Update (8/8/00): There has been some criticism that I have perhaps been too harsh in referring to Lord Chamberlain as a “pussy.” I am inclined to agree that, in general, Chamberlain was no doubt a strong and intelligent man whose courage was fairly stout. However, if one looks at the criticism Chamberlain received at the time, particularly from Winston Churchill, one will see that a good argument was indeed made against avoiding war at all costs with a policy of appeasement.In short, I believe that Churchill, a man of strong beliefs and a sharp tongue, would probably have referred to Chamberlain in a similar fashion in the heat of debate.