Cause > Effect

Chapter 57: Cause > Effect

“Chance is a word void of sense; nothing can exist without a cause.” Voltaire

Consider for a moment and fully connect with Voltaire’s words above.

Also, consider the position you find yourself in right now, reading this chapter. How much of the life you find yourself presented with is because of chance and how much by design?

In nature, very few things are black or white; nature does not concern itself with the binary language of computers. Nature (Gaia) is analogue; it is not black or white, one or zero; it is in fact, every perceivable colour and shade and perhaps many more outside our human perception. The vast majority of the models I use also reside in the analogue world of nature. There are occasional exceptions to the rule, however.

Cause & Effect is an example of a binary model. You are either on the Cause side of the equation or the Effect; there is no central ground to occupy. On the Effect side of the equation, you have reasons (and sometimes excuses) for why you’re not getting what you want, being whom you want to be, or doing what you want to do. On the Cause side of the equation, you only have your results. Whether they are the results you want, or not, is inconsequential – they are just your results.

My fiancée was diagnosed seven years ago with a rare and incurable type of leukaemia called Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia (CML). Ruth is a kind, thoughtful and incredibly caring person; everyone who meets her falls in love with her effervescent personality and selfless nature. Why should she deserve this incurable disease caused by a mutated chromosome called the ‘Philadelphia Chromosome’?

The whole thing stinks of unfairness, a cosmic role of medical chance like a twisted lottery you never entered and even less wanted to win.

She did not deserve it, but the (harsh) truth is she does have it, and for a long time she struggled to come to terms with the reality of the situation, asking the existential question, “why me?”

The defining moment that enabled her to control the situation was when she reversed this question and asked the inverse, “why not me?”

Why shouldn’t it be her, if it is to be this grand spin of nature’s chance, why should someone else have to bear it and not her? Maybe if the dice rolled again, it might be her sister, friend, mother or even a poor child on the other side of the world who has no access to the marvellous treatment afforded to her by our NHS. Adopting this mindset allows her to move from the Effect side of the equation to the Cause, so she takes ownership of the reality dealt her by chance. She cannot control having this disease; she cannot control the cure, but she can have absolute control of her reaction to the situation. Now, I am not for one second implying this positional switch is easy, for Ruth, she had to work hard to move from one side to the other. Life will at times place you on the Effect side without reason or being deserved, life can be a bitch as the saying goes, but you can choose your reaction to the hands the chance deals.

As Viktor Frankl says in his seminal book ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’, “When we are no longer able to change our situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”

Reflection: Although there may very well be randomness to the hands we are dealt in life, there is certainly nothing random about our reactions – ask any poker player this. You may not always get dealt the hand which you desire, but you can make the most of the cards in your hand.