Destiny, a word redolent with possibility,
is an outer world, one beyond us
but around us.
As we live our lives we bump up against the thin borderline
between its world and ours, hitting at that instant
the cushion, think billiards, that imparts to us a direction,
we would not have followed unless we had been banked that way.
Think Isaac Newton.
Fate is quite otherwise, the connotation stern and bleak.
You gambol down a street full of potholes, and waltzing along,
you suddenly step in one of them, twist your ankle, break your leg, disappear altogether.
Fortune can be good or bad. If Fate has you fall down a deep pothole,
you may miraculously find a pot of gold at the bottom.
If you fall down that pothole and break your neck, however,
are never seen or heard from again, this Fortune the worst.
Perhaps you’ve heard Fortune described as a wheel.
It is ours to spin upon.
Think vertical, a Ferris wheel, not horizontal, Vanna White.
Sometimes we’re at the top, sometimes we’re not.
When you’re down, you know the phrase,
all the blood in your body rushing to your head,
positioned at the absolute nadir of your miserable existence,
feet pointed toward the heavens, you may suffer an aneurism.
This is bad Fortune. Very, very bad.
But what else can you expect when we are ruled by gravity.
Nobody can remain at the top of the wheel.
You are too heavy, will inevitably find yourself feet up,
head down, because Sir Isaac says it’s so.
Pessimists, don’t confuse this with bad Luck.
It’s simply physics. Science is such a buzzkill.
Good Fortune? Good Fortune is good Luck,
the very optimistic opposite.
It’s donuts versus diets. Think heaven versus hell.
Enjoy it while you may, a minute, an hour, a day.
It speeds like light and so quickly spins away.
Lanning Lee 