Bellerophon, cast from Pegasus’ back; Oedipus, blinded; Heracles, seared by the Hydra’s blood. All dead, yet the myths of their memories endure. Each one accomplishes much good in his life; each one soars to the heights of heroism, cunningly solves the enigmas blocking his way, and smites the monsters of Gaia; each one lives life on his own terms; each one is the architect of his own fortune.
For millennia, indeed, for as long as mankind has existed, men have sought to explain the paths their lives take by means of an exterior motivating force, a force whose aid they besought from time to time, a force named through the ages: Fair Fortune, Dame Destiny, Lady Luck. I say to you, however, that it was not this imaginary Clotho who answered the call of these men, but rather the impetus of their individual skills, the power of their ambitions, the greatness—or smallness—of their characters.
The dawn of each new day presents every man with countless choices, countless branches through the tree of life. Every choice sends the man further along the branch he follows from his last decision—whether it be a rotten one about to crash down upon him, or a stable trunk leading to the heavens—either alternative rests at the hands of the man climbing through life. If, like Heracles, the man fosters within himself an indomitable will, then life will yield itself unto him as a sapling yields itself unto a gale. Should, however, the man assume Bellerophon’s lack of strong character, then he shall follow a rotten branch and, like Bellerophon, come crashing down. Any man’s destiny, his destination in life—be it to aspire to the sky or merely expire and die—lies solely in his own hands.
Cut from his Theban roots, the lamentable Oedipus claimed to be subject to a conspiracy of events, events uncontrollable, for ‘tis far easier to decry, “The branch, my path, broke from beneath me” than to admit, “I chose poorly.” Truly, events are not uncontrollable. Oedipus had forewarning of which branch, which ramification, of his life could destroy him, yet he chose not to seek out and neutralize that branch by force of will nor to resist it through strength of character, but rather to flee blindly—an action which led him upon the fatal path; he chose to kill a man knowing that man could be his father—a blind step onto the visibly rotten wood—he chose to marry the dead man’s wife—a foolish act. Oedipus rushed headlong toward the weakest arm of his already suspect life and audaciously sought to throw his full weight upon it, yet he claimed ex post facto that his fate had been incontrovertible. No. The blame for Oedipus’ life justly can be laid only at his feet, feet swollen, as his name would suggest, from carrying him along the painful path of folly.
Fate is not a physical being nor a manifest power but rather the combined effort of a man’s will, his intelligence, his common sense, and character. A man strong in these, choosing well, shall cut back the hedge of possibilities that is his life until it is shaped according to his desires; the man who choose laxity first shall be overwhelmed by an overgrowth of sickly, weak, decaying branches—branches that are his future. Each man prunes his own tree of life; Faber est suae quisque fortunae.
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Background by Morion.