No, not fate

The Adjustment Bureau has some interesting philosophy behind it. I have only seen the commercials to this movie, but it looks like it will be a treatment of an age-old theme in story-telling.

The consummate story telling this theme is from the Greek theater. Sophocles wrote a play called Oedipus the King. The theme is whether or not humans have free will to choose their course of actions through life or whether some bigger picture comes into play as in the idea of destiny or fate. Oedipus made some choices, but by the end of the play, the fate of the gods ruled his actions without his knowledge, and his actions ruined his life completely.



Earlier than Sophocles, the Hebrews had a play called Job where the world around him was controlled by a deity thus controlling Job's reactions. His immediate family was taken from him, but he ended up conceding that he didn't control anything, so he gained a new second family. The Hebrews apparently liked this theme because an even earlier story was told of a character of really humble means who rose against all odds, and not due to any action of his own, to become second in charge of a world-class empire. By being in that position, he saved a nation, and the deity controlled all the action, not humans at all.

Stories like these two exist even earlier in Sumer and in the Indus Valley Harrapan civilization. Early people, no doubt felt that they didn't control the environment around them, so their own actions fed a larger picture that wasn't controlled by them, but in conjunction with those supernaturals who did control the environment.



Two of my favorite movies of all times are You've Got Mail and, a little later, Serendipity. One interpretation of these movies would have a higher force drawing people together no matter what human actions got in the way of the drawing power. Events followed a force line that people ignored to some extent or for a period of time, but eventually the force defied people's action and the two that should be drawn together were drawn together.



I think people in general like to think that something or someone outside of themselves directs their big picture actions, but there is another explanation to events that happen much like the ones in You've Got Mail and Serendipity. People ultimately know themselves and what would make them happy. It sometimes makes them take calculated risks as in You've Got Mail. And sometimes it makes them understand the math behind intersecting lines and trajectories between two points as in Serendipity.



But the reason I like those two movies so much is that it shows it is a heart's desire backed by a steady, unfailing hope that brings one person to another .