Fate, luck, ... or?

[missy]

(Mods, if I have put this in the wrong place, please move it ... I tried to put it in the right place but I may have gotten it wrong. Thank you!)

It is about a girl who was killed during the recent shooting in Colorado. But it wasn't just any girl. She was an aspiring sportscaster, but there is more.

Her last blog entry is here: http://jessicaredfield.wordpress.com/2012/06/05/late-night-thoughts-on-the-eaton-center-shooting/ and it was titled: "Late Night Thoughts on the Eaton Center Shooting." It was written June 5 2012.

It was her first-person account of her being at a mass-shooting that took place in a Toronto mall where she went to get some sushi just before somone open-fired in a food court. Because of a last-minute decision she made, she was not killed.

...

And now, a little over a month later ... what are the odds? she was killed at the scene of another mass shooting, the one in Colorado.

The story is here. http://deadspin.com/5927673/aspiring-sportscaster-killed-in-shooting-at-colorado-movie-theater

The reason I bring this up -- and I am not a particularly religious person and would welcome any and all viewpoints from all beliefs (as I am sure is always the case here) as I ponder ... how does something like this happen? Was this young girl somehow ... meant to die the first time, as much as I do not want to think this, and then she did not ... somehow the hand of fate missed her, and thus fate came back to get her?

Or was this just an extremely unlucky occurrence?

I don't know what to think. It just seems so incredibly unlucky as to almost seem too unlikely to be a coincidence ... If she had somehow prevented this (via, let's postulate as one possibility, free will) from taking place, would a third occurrence have happened ... a third shooting? (for the sake of argument let's postulate it happens via determinism; feel free to submit your own theories) Or was the second shooting a simple coincidence?

I would love to hear any thoughts that any wish to share.

 

[poopsie]

I guess there would be different ways of looking at this depending on our belief system ...

For those who believe in fate and destiny more than in our power to change our circumstances, they would see this as really destiny that can't be avoided ... like, she was really "destined" to die that way, it is just the occasion on when it would happen. Intuition told her to change her mind the first time around and she was able to escape death. However, it appears that her destiny to die at that very moment predominated her life... she was really bound to die that way, in those circumstances. That's how it could be seen.

Another perspective may involve either logic bordering on fear -- some people may say that given the first experience, she would be more careful now to go to places which may be conducive for such "incidents" to happen -- malls, food courts, theatres, sidewalks, markets, etc ... , places where there are many people which may supposedly be more attractive to threats like terrorist attacks, episodes of mentally deranged people commiting acts of violence to a crowd, and so on -- and yet, when you really think about it, the likelihood of this happening is so rare and minimal. For someone who has been through this the first time, they may develop a phobia or fear because of this and avoid such places so that they would be able to escape these possibilities from happening. If Jessica behaved this way, then it is almost like giving up one's freedom to choose to enjoy life even in small ways. - movies, eating out, etc. We would not want that for her either.

I guess the question that may be burning inside us -- could she have avoided it as in the first time?

We will never know the answer to this because we would not know if the intuition that saved her the first time also gave her a "message" but she may have not listened to it, or maybe, there was no intuition at all, in which case, fate had prevailed - she was meant to go beyond.

I think there is really a thin line connecting fate and choice or power to change things in our life.

I read the two articles and I really feel sad that a promising young girl would meet such a tragic end needlessly. But maybe, because of this event in general -- it may be a wake-up call -- society may sometimes be desensitized to violence since we read and hear this on the news everyday. We have become apathetic to plights of people - a young Jessica whose life and career is cut short because of a mad man who was able to purchase guns and explosives to use ...and on the mad man himself -- what has turned him to be this way? Like Jessica, he is just as promising -- a phd candidate for neuro science, no criminal record? We have actually lost many promising lives in this incident -- people who would have made a difference in a more positive way.

Instead, we have lost wonderful lives in a tragic way -- and their death may also make a significant difference in another way. - because of this, we may start reflecting on we should continue to sell weapons to people on the assumption that "people have a right to defend themselves", and so in.

The individuals who died in this horrific incident taught us something ... and knowing one of them - Jessica - makes much of a difference ... because we see her on TV, she becomes a person whom we may not have had an acquaintance with, but still "know, admire and like" because of the life she projected in her appearances. To a great extent, because of this, the tragedy now becomes personal to us ... we are offended, we are hurt even if we were not there, we are in mourning because the "aspirations she had that can no longer take flight" has been riddled with bullets -- it's almost as if we see our own loved one in her and we fear for their lives. And this is not just Jessica, but for the rest of the victims -- what their deaths would mean for us, and how we can honor them by starting to challenge some of our own assumptions about defense, guns, security, movies, etc.

Individual fate has a way of making its message heard when it becomes collective -- it prompts society to make the choice to put in changes and re-create a society's destiny.

 

[Carla]

It's human nature to see patterns and make connections. It's the way we make sense of the world. But sometimes, we make connections where there really are none. In my opinion, this is just a coincidence.

 

[Zezina]

It's human nature to see patterns and make connections. It's the way we make sense of the world. But sometimes, we make connections where there really are none. In my opinion, this is just a coincidence.

Much of me wants to see a significant connection between these two events, but overall I must agree with Carla.

 

[missy]

I guess the question that may be burning inside us -- could she have avoided it as in the first time?

I think this is true; that this is something that I have wondered also.

We will never know the answer to this because we would not know if the intuition that saved her the first time also gave her a "message" but she may have not listened to it, or maybe, there was no intuition at all, in which case, fate had prevailed - she was meant to go beyond.

I think there is really a thin line connecting fate and choice or power to change things in our life.

There used to be a television show on which got canceled. It was called Dead Like Me. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Like_Me It was fiction but the premise was based on grim reapers taking the souls of the living only after the reapers had seen that they were going to die (actually they received a "list"). The events surrounding the death itself were precipitated by "gravelings" which I would say represented evil (and some would say Satan or dark beings or whatever their concept of evil is).

Part of me wonders if our world does have such creatures (like "gravelings") in it ... and if they wreak such havoc. This is probably the result of watching the show ... ? But after something like this happens, it gives one pause. Could there be invisible evil creatures/spirits wreaking havoc in our world?

I know this is not my area of expertise at all, but since no one has mentioned it ... Divine intervention. Did it play a role? In the "entire" event. Maybe in someone's opinion it did -- perhaps many more would have been killed and divine intervention prevented a much worse catastrophe from happening? I have to leave that to someone who knows that area better than I to discuss. Did it play a role in what happened to Jessica? Now that is quite beyond me. I do not know how to answer that and would have to look to someone else for guidance.

Or how would a Pagan/Wiccan make sense of what happened (or would they say it is just a random occurrence)?

Whatever your belief(s), I would welcome hearing them. Then again, perhaps this is not about what one believes, but as Carla and Zezina state:

It's human nature to see patterns and make connections. It's the way we make sense of the world. But sometimes, we make connections where there really are none. In my opinion, this is just a coincidence.

Much of me wants to see a significant connection between these two events, but overall I must agree with Carla.

You could be right, Carla and Zezina. Perhaps it is just coincidence.

Maybe in my mind I want to look for a way to save her -- or perhaps a better way to word it is to say I want to find a way to make sense of it afterwards, since she cannot be saved. (I am not ignoring the other victims who were there, but for purposes of this thread am focusing on her due to her unique circumstances.) As poopsie said, "could she have avoided it as in the first time"?

And maybe there just is no making sense of it. Maybe it is just one more thing in this great big world that doesn't make sense.

 

[Bhavana]

I was amazed at this as well - I mean, the odds must be way out there. I go back and forth between belief in fate, that there are no accidents - and belief that life is random. I'd like to believe we all go when our time is up, or that we get what we have coming to us in the end- but it's hard to justify that when I hear about an innocent child being tortured and murdered. More and more I feel that religion - ALL religions - came about as little more than an effort to control the masses.

Yes, it's wild that this happened to her, being at the scene of two mass shootings. But coincidences DO happen, all the time.