On Fate

When people ask me whether I believe in fate, I say no, yet I also say that what I believe in most is serendipity. In fact, the meanings of these two words are quite different.

When fate is mentioned, it generally gives people the sense of being “limited” or “fixed,” as if your future were under the control of some force. People usually speak of fate in terms like “defying fate” or “struggling against fate,” and so on. I like to let things take their natural course; if fate really exists, I would not fight against it. But that would mean entrusting my own life to some mysterious force I know nothing about, and the feeling of freedom and ease would inevitably be greatly diminished. Serendipity, however, is different: it is not Heaven’s “constraint,” but Heaven’s “gift.” We never say we should “resist serendipity”; instead, we say we should “cherish serendipity.” — Serendipity is easy to refuse; one need only fail to cherish it. But serendipity is worth cherishing, for it is a mysterious gift bestowed by Heaven. What is meant by serendipity is precisely some mysterious coincidences. Whether these coincidences bring me happiness or pain, I am willing to cherish them, willing to believe that behind serendipity there lies Heaven’s gift, and Heaven’s elusive intention.

Serendipity is something one cannot help believing in, especially when it comes to love. Love is the most important and precious emotion human beings possess. Animals have no reason, no sensibility, and still less love; reason is humanity’s special strength. I have said before that what makes humans human is precisely that only humans can use reason to restrain beastliness, thereby elevating humanity into sensibility. Love is the same: it should be a mixture of reason and sensibility, and should not be a manifestation of beastliness. Why do we love? Some people say love needs no reason and is simply “based on feeling.” This kind of explanation sounds very romantic, yet it is actually using beastliness to explain love — after all, aren’t animals’ “heat” also “based on feeling”? The key is that this sort of reason is illusory. No one can guarantee that “feeling” will exist forever. The arising of “feeling” requires no reason, and its fading likewise requires none; “feeling” can only serve as the reason for “love at first sight,” not as the guarantee of love. Some people are a bit more practical and find all sorts of real-world reasons for love, such as the other person being beautiful, well matched in social standing, talented, of good character, and so on. These are indeed more solid reasons, but they are still unstable — looks age, family status may decline, talent may regress. Character is the hardest to change, but even that is not immune to exceptions; character can also decay. Yet one can imagine that a truly great love can withstand any test. What I am talking about is not an ordinary matter of romantic affection, but the truth of love itself. True love is meant to last forever, and therefore cannot be built entirely on these variable reasons. So what is an unchanging reason? After thinking it over and over, there is only “serendipity” after all! “Feeling” can only serve as the reason for love at first sight; talent, character, and the like can only serve as reasons for “falling in love” with someone; the reason for sustaining love, however, is serendipity. All those unstable reasons above may also be wholly subsumed under serendipity. Somewhere in the unseen, some force brings two people to meet, to know one another, to love one another. Love itself is also a kind of serendipity; “falling in love” is a process, and making “falling in love” itself into serendipity turns it into something eternal and unchanging. Serendipity either exists or it does not; one cannot say, “We’ll have serendipity before next week.”

Of course, serendipity remains a very uncertain concept; what counts as serendipity and what does not is a highly subjective matter. But since it is subjective, one can be very certain about it oneself; it is not necessarily only the objective that is stable. Besides, science is not omnipotent, and the problems of human emotion can by no means be wholly ruled by science. Serendipity is rational, it is also emotional, and even more, it is mysterious.

Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.