The psychological value of fatalism is obvious: the future is out of our hands, so why worry?
Perhaps the purest expression of this is the Arabic saying Maktub, which means “it is written”. The story is already told. We are waiting to see what our role on all this is. We will be given the script whenever it is our time on stage.
To be sure, this can breed passivity. As one Ranger Medic acquaintance of mine once quipped while in Iraq: “The Will of Allah seems to be inversely proportional to work.”
And of course, often, there is some small detail—or to be sure, the CHANCE of some small detail—which could make a difference. This is what drives me crazy. I think often maybe there exists some argument, some idea, some action which might make an unexpected and completely unpredicted difference.
But for all of is spectators, which is really all most of us are, most of the time, you need the ability to just let it all go, to “allow”—as if that were really what is happening!!—everything to work out the way it is going to work out.
Our modern world, with all it success—empowers us, but I think many of us take this too far. It is Life after all, and Ray Kurzweil will never succeed. Thoughts do not originate in the brain. William James called it over a hundred years ago, on “ Principles of Psychology”, and none of the important facts have changed since.