Threads of Life

In Greek Mythology, the Moirae sit silently spinning the threads of life. No one, not even the Gods had power over them.

Fate, destiny, the will of God - by any other name - ascribes the reality of our inability to determine, ultimately, the journey of our lives. And yet we struggle to exert autonomy over it, waddling in the delusion we have the capacities, by knowledge and reason alone, to wave the hand of fate and defy the stars.

We come to realisation of our minuteness and futile struggle when we lose the helm, when our ship charters through turbulent storms that threaten to wreck the feeble frame of wood and bolts.

And then we ask why ...

But the echo resounds only as silence ... The three sisters of fate carry on their weaving, their weaving of the tapestry that is your life.

And when the thread runs thin or Clotho and Lachesis decide the work is done, incomplete as it may possibly be, Atropos will cut the threads.

Who decides who lives or dies? What promises can we make about our futures? Why do we make them as though we would live forever? Who ever guaranteed a brighter tomorrow, a utopia for oneself? Who ever said we would wake to see the dawn of another day?

We live life like we were immortals; we amass, covet and pilfer but what do we have in the end?

To know life, we need to seek death. It is perhaps only in the pursuit of death will we understand the purpose of life ...