Hazard

In one of the first encounters Nicholas has with Conchis in John Fowles' The Magus, Nicholas realizes that Conchis is saying and doing things that he does not expect Nicholas to believe. He is confused by the scenario he finds himself in and tells Conchis, "I'd enjoy it all more if I knew what it meant" (189). Conchis finds this amusing and says he himself doesn't know what it means, to which Nicholas replies, "Why me?" Conchis, in turn, says, "There is only one answer to your question...Why everything is, including you, including me, and all the gods, is a matter of hazard. Nothing else. Pure hazard."

A few more quotes from the novel:
"The world began in hazard and will end in it."
"There is no plan. All is hazard. And the only thing that will preserve us is ourselves."

Let's start with the etymology of hazard, which means "chance or luck." Conchis is then saying that the world and each of us in it is entirely a matter of chance. We are nothing more than the result of atoms falling into place at random. My initial reaction to this was to say, "No- we make things happen in our lives. We sculpt who we are; we are all paintings composed of particular brush strokes and purposeful colors." But then I realized; I am wrong.

Everything I am is a result of the experiences I have had. And I have no control over what has happened to me. I remember my 9th grade speech teacher once saying, "You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control how you react." When I first heard it I did not fully understand it (although I of course thought I did). I took it to explain the big obviously-out-of-our-control things: natural disasters, deaths, etc. But when thinking of it now, in regards to Conchis' words, I realize it applies to everything: the hobbies I have, the clothes I wear, the people in my life. All of it is nothing more than a matter of chance.

I walk around thinking I have made myself into the person I am today, but really I have done nothing more than react to what has been presented to me; "There is no plan. All is hazard. And the only thing that will preserve us is ourselves." I am not responsible for the life I have, only for the perspective I have. And even then, I only hold partial ownership because I could not have formed that way of viewing things without the experiences (over which I have no control) that I have encountered. I am so very little my own.

We are not paintings composed of particular brush strokes and purposeful colors; we are the image you can almost see when you tilt your head looking into a grouping of clouds. We are a matter of hazard. And this should not be taken in a negative manner, but in quite a positive one. Being a matter of hazard allows us so much potential for change. Our limits extend beyond those that we, in all of our human futility, are restricted to and reach as far as the eye can see. Every collision between atoms provides another image for us to react to and therefore another opportunity for development.

These thoughts crawled around in my head as I was walking from campus to my car today. As per usual I had my headphones in and was listening to my iPod. The song ended and as I clicked the screen on to select a new song I thought of The Magus and how "Every answer is a form of death." In a way, my choosing to select a specific song kills the opportunity for surprise; it is an answer of sorts and since it could not bring anything new into my life, what possible motive do I have for choosing the song? I went instead to all of my songs and selected the "shuffle" option. When, seconds later, a song popped on that made me think "Wow I haven't heard this is forever, this makes me think of the angst-filled poetry I used to write years ago" I was rewarded. How long would it have taken me to think back to those angsty poems if I hadn't heard that song? Would I ever have thought of them in depth like that again?

Who knows. Maybe I would have been brought back to that memory by something else only hours later. Maybe days. Or years. No one can be sure; it is all a matter of hazard.