Some Words: Romanticism, Volition, and Fate

I'm not a philosopher. I hardly use any labels or titles at all. What does it mean to be a part of a group with a name and a meaning over which you have no control?

I used to say I was a feminist. Someone who believed in equal rights. But even that label spun out of control. If the only purpose of a word is to convey meaning, but the meaning of the word is different for everyone speaking and hearing it, then has that word really served its purpose? Best to lead with the definition and the titles after. I'm a believer in human rights and equal rights.

ROMANTICISM.

Romanticism is a word I have difficulty saying because people get it confused with a "helpless romantic." Romanticism was a school of thought that believed in humanity's greatness and volition. In other words, that our choices were who we were, that our choices mattered and impacted our lives. Humans are not ragdolls tossed around by the storm of Fate.

FATE.

The belief that destiny prevails. That there is some predetermined element in our existences. Look forward, not back. You can't change the past any more than you can change the future. Everything that has happened and will happen was meant to be. No use protesting. No use complaining. No use moving or thinking or working towards that which will never be. A human is a passive observer of their own life.

BROMIDE.

A platitude. Like most chemical terms I like, they come from things that knock people out. Bromides. Ethers. To etherize upon a table, for instance. Things that calm the mind because it's comforting to know that there was never anything that you could do. Fate is a bromide. It's comforting to know that life never blasted off its rails by accident and was always meant to fly through the air before landing on another track.

ORPHAN.

To be an orphan. For however long that may have been. Some adoptees were in the orphanage for a decade, others less than a year. The state of orphanhood is so often portrayed as fate in books and fairytales. Is it really just a summation of stars aligning or red threads crossing, snapping, and rejoining? Or is it a result of decisions, human choices, and actions?

CHOICE.

When someone signs a contract with a gun to their head, that contract is null and void. We say that the contract is not valid because the person signed it under duress. When we speak of birthparents who had to make a "difficult decision," who had to "choose" between abortion, sterilization, and abandonment. Or when we speak of families who were pursued, people who were turned in and punished, or babies who got lost in the fumble of people trying their hardest to keep everyone alive...Is that really a choice? Can we really say birthparents chose things with a proverbial gun to their heads?

Or can we rely on fate? Pop a bromide. Say, that perhaps, that woman was always meant to abort the baby so that she would not be forcibly sterilized so she could try again to have a male because she was only allowed, and could only afford, so many children. Was it fate that the police confiscated one twin and not the other? Is that a choice? Did fate carry away that decision? Or was the decision made by someone more powerful, a decision which became the decisions of everyone else. Already made. They just had to sign the contract with a gun to their heads and say, "I made the choice. I regret it now."

ROMANTICSM.

I can try all I want to make decisions. Decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. And I can do everything right. I can be law abiding. I can stay away from sin, whatever that means. I can be good and pure and right. I can give everything of myself for this ironically named second chance at life, and still come up empty with the only thing I've ever wanted. I want to know my birthmother more than anything in the entire world. If my existence is made by layered decisions and choices, then surely I just have to hit upon the right combination or permutation and voila. 

FATE.

And even if I deny fate with everything I have, say that I don't believe that it is Fate for the Holocaust to have happened. Say that I don't believe that slavery was Destiny or that genocides were written in the stars, I know that ultimately, beating my fists against the wall until they bleed won't do anything. That I can work with all my heart and wish with all I have and still come up empty. That there has to be an element of luck and fate and opportunity. That hard work and luck need to meet for something to happen. That you can't have all one without the other. That matches just aren't made without the hard work of good people...but that there are so many searching birthfamilies and adoptees who work so hard and wish so much, and there just can't be a linear correlation between wishing and success, because that would be a grievous insult to everyone who's ever loved.

VOLITION.

So I do what I can. I donate to DNAConnect.Org because I have faith in them to do what's right. I work hard in life to earn a life worth living. I've worked all my life to avoid that fate of orphans which is burdenhood. Even if everyone says you're part of the family, there are times you feel like you're still alone. That you're an orphan, and that that line on all your permission slips in grade school, which said "Signature of Parent or Guardian" was asking for your guardian instead, because part of you always felt that Fate wasn't strong enough. 

FATE.

No, you were not always meant to be here. Part of you knew that in the shuffle, you could have been assigned to any of the adoptive parents that fateful day when you were still in the orphanage. And that uncertainty is terrifying. Surely, it wasn't personal. There wasn't an exam a toddler could take to draw up a compatibility match with the adoptive parents. Every time I went to a reunion, big or small, an FCC event or an orphanage group get together, seven people to fifty people, to 200 people...I knew that every adoptive parent could have been mine. And I knew other adoptees felt that way too, that in a way, we still felt like orphans in an orphanage, ready to be selected. Ready to be chosen...but it wasn't really a choice, was it? Even our adoptive parents never chose us. Even the orphanage assignment, for the most part, wasn't even a decision, just a chore for some employee. Would being chosen really matter? Does it make you feel special to be evaluated, measured against the other, and deemed worthy? How much cash can you fetch for a soul? You can't measure human worth. 

ROMANTICISM.

The belief that human worth and dignity are innate. That the idiotic ideal that an orphan is ever chosen is insulting. The valuation of our lives is not comparable. It doesn't go up or down with the loss of family. Human rights aren't always fulfilled and I'm loath to call love a privilege. Everyone has a right to a family and love. It isn't always fulfilled, but it's a right.

BROMIDE.

And even with all of this, people still want to hear bromides. "Oh yes, I was abandoned in a box by a tree...and I'm very grateful, truly, I am...and while Sally and Ben are whining about their iPads not having enough data, I'll still play the part written out for the orphan, unobtrusive, grateful, uncomplaining, thankful, and even when Josh and Lucy are smashing cake into their mouths, I'll remember that I'm lucky to even have food. Because all you ever want to hear is that I was nothing before my parents came along, and unless I grovel with my gratitude, I'll never deserve them." Because there is no greater bromide for the public than to hear you say, "I'm a lucky, grateful orphan."