NOTHING IS RANDOM

Nothing is random, nor will anything
ever be, whether a long string of
perfectly blue days that begin and end
in golden dimness, the most
seemingly chaotic political acts, the
rise of a great city, the crystalline
structure of a gem that has never seen
the light, the distributions of fortune,
what time the milkman gets up, the
position of the electron, or the
occurrence of one astonishingly frigid
winter after another.
Even electrons, supposedly the
paragons of unpredictability, are tame
and obsequious little creatures that
rush around at the speed of light,
going precisely where they are
supposed to go. They make faint
whistling sounds that when
apprehended in varying combinations
are as pleasant as the wind flying
through a forest, and they do exactly
as they are told. Of this, one can be
certain.
And yet there is a wonderful anarchy,
in that the milkman chooses when to
arise, the rat picks the tunnel into
which he will dive when the subway
comes rushing down the track from
Borough Hall, and the snowflake will
fall as it will. How can this be? If
nothing is random, and everything is
predetermined, how can there be free
will? The answer to that is simple.
Nothing is predetermined; it is
determined, or was determined, or will
be determined. No matter, it all
happened at once, in less than an
instant, and time was invented
because we cannot comprehend in
one glance the enormous and
detailed canvas that we have been
given - so we track it, in linear fashion,
piece by piece. Time, however, can be
easily overcome; not by chasing light,
but by standing back far enough to
see it all at once.
The universe is still and complete.
Everything that ever was, is; everything
that ever will be, is - and so on, in all
possible combinations. Though in
perceiving it we imagine that it is in
motion, and unfinished, it is quite
finished and quite astonishingly
beautiful.
In the end, or rather, as things really
are, any event, no matter how small,
is intimately and sensibly tied to all
others. All rivers run full to the sea;
those who are apart are brought
together; the lost ones are redeemed;
the dead come back to life; the
perfectly blue days that have begun
and ended in golden dimness
continue, immobile and accessible;
and, when all is perceived in such a
way as to obviate time, justice
becomes apparent not as something
that will be, but as something that is.