Is Life a Cosmic Improv or a Scripted Illusion?
Here’s My Take
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If life were a script, I’d like to meet the screenwriter. I’d shake their hand, commend their narrative twists, and demand to know why they threw in that bizarre subplot where I found myself arguing with a Starbucks employee in Las Vegas about my $9.40 medium dirty chai.
Honestly, I often question whether such a screenwriter exists. In other words, is there really someone in the great celestial writer’s room storyboarding our lives, ensuring that each act unfolds with measured precision?
I lean toward the belief that life is a beautifully chaotic, unpredictable dance—an unscripted improvisation where we step in and out of randomness like a leaf swirling in the autumn wind.
It’s not to say that I believe in complete disorder. No, there is a flow, a current, a rhythm beneath the randomness, but it’s not a rigidly designed blueprint.
Like something more akin to the Tao—the way of things, unfolding in their natural, spontaneous course.
Waking Up to the Unscripted
The thing I look forward to the most when I wake up every morning? The randomness. The unexpected encounter at a coffeehouse. The serendipitous discovery of a new book that reshapes my perspective. The email that wasn’t on my radar but somehow shifts my day’s trajectory.
These little moments are the heartbeat of life. I don’t wake up excited because I know exactly what’s going to happen—I wake up excited precisely because I don’t.
The Tao Te Ching reminds us, “Do you have the patience to wait until your mud settles and the water is clear? Can you remain unmoving till the right action arises by itself?” (Laozi, Chapter 15).
In my case, the “right action” often emerges from the sheer unpredictability of the day. I have no control over what the universe throws my way, but I do have control over how I engage with it. And so, I play with randomness, treating it as a co-creator in this adventure of existence.
Inflection Points: The Tao in Motion
When I zoom out and examine my life, I see a series of major inflection points—moments where randomness and decision collided to shift my trajectory in ways I never could have planned. A chance conversation. A misdialed number. A rejection that became a redirection. My entire life can largely be traced to a dozen or so of these pivotal moments.
The I Ching, the ancient Chinese Book of Changes, operates under a similar philosophy. It teaches that life is not a rigid, preordained sequence but rather a field of constantly shifting energies. Each moment presents a choice—a hexagram waiting to be cast, an intersection where paths split and weave into new formations.
One of my favorite hexagrams is Hexagram 40: Deliverance, which speaks to liberation through change. It reminds us that when obstacles arise, they are not roadblocks but rather invitations to pivot.
Looking back, many of my most defining moments were born from unexpected detours. The rejection that forced me to reinvent myself. The city I moved to on a whim that became a home. The stranger who became a friend, shaping my path in ways neither of us could have anticipated.
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Wandering Through a Random World
The ancient Taoist sages were wanderers—nomads of the soul, drifting not in aimless folly but in alignment with the way things are. I, too, find myself drawn to a life of wandering, not just physically but intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually.
My path has never been linear. It meanders, zigzags, loops back on itself. Yet, somehow, I always seem to land exactly where I need to be.
There’s something deeply liberating about embracing randomness as a partner in co-creation. Instead of clutching desperately to a rigid five-year plan, I let the universe toss me breadcrumbs, following them with a mix of curiosity and amusement.
The Tao Te Ching whispers, “The best way to live is to be like water. Water benefits all things and does not compete.” (Chapter 8). In my life, I flow—not because I am passive, but because I trust the unfolding.
The Art of Co-Creating with Chaos
So, if life is unscripted, does that mean we are powerless to shape our destiny? Not at all. Instead, I see myself as a co-creator, dancing with randomness, shaping it not through force, but through flow.
Instead of trying to impose my will upon the universe, I move in harmony with it, nudging, responding, and pivoting in tandem with the rhythm of change.
In this way, randomness isn’t an enemy; it’s a creative force. It’s the jazz improvisation of existence—the riff between order and chaos, the call-and-response between the unknown and the unfolding. It’s why I find joy in the surprises, the detours, the unscripted dialogue that life throws my way.
Reveling in the Beauty of the Unscripted
If life were scripted, it would be predictable, and predictability is the death of wonder. The greatest stories—the ones that linger in our hearts—are never the ones where everything goes exactly as planned. They are the ones where the protagonist stumbles into the unknown, adapts, and transforms.
I wake up every day not knowing what small twist of fate will shape my next chapter. And that, to me, is the most exhilarating part of being alive. The script is unwritten, the path is shifting, and the universe is always offering a new way forward. So I wander, I listen, I dance with randomness.
After all, the Tao does not dictate a single path. It simply flows.
And so do I.
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Love that perspective of co-creating with randomness
This is sweet and timely.