Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc

Currently Listening :: O Caminho :: Bebel Gilberto

After, therefore because of.

Cause and Effect. Despite causality seeming to be quite logical, in this everyday scientist's world, things aren't checked by boundaries and infinte numbers. Allow me to elaborate with a simple hypothesis.

Two friends of mine recently tied the knot in marriage, the first in my group of friends to take that next step in life together. While not usually one to simplify, you have a timeline of boy meets girl, said pair eventually become a couple, said couple spend lots of time getting to know one another, boy eventually drops to one knee and whips it out (it being the shiny rock universally loved by all women, costing a universally agreed upon equivalent of three times the boys monthly salary.) Said couple are now engaged, said couple now plans wedding, and here we are.

Does that mean that they got married simply because one asked the other?

It's like Nick Hornby so insightfully had Rob proclaim in the male manifesto High Fidelity: "Do I listen to pop music because I am miserable? Or am I miserable because I listen to pop music?" Try to think about some similar cause and effect scenarios.

Did my weekend budget get blown off the hinges because I paid $16 for a pair of simple rubber sandles?

Would have doing a marketing degree at university meant I would have the job I have right now sooner?

Do a lot of relationships fail due to a single moment of weakness?

Did mankind learn how to best dunk a doughnut overnight? Of course not.

What it does mean is that while everything does happen for a reason, it usually happens for a lot more reasons than we think. Sure you may think that the reason why someone did something was a factor of x...but in reality, it was more about the x, y and z. The whole 'straw that breaks the camels back' or as I refer to it, the 'reverse icing on the cake', just doesn't hold true all the time.

In so many situations, both now and in the past, I constantly try to find the answer to that ever open to interpretation question: why? But I've learnt that trying to pinpoint a fatal fault, a crucial collapse or a momentary mistake that supposedly lead to doom and disaster just doesn't work.

As I play my life back frame by frame, reliving those moments so crucial to me, I sometimes wonder if I did believe in fate, my life would indeed be different to what it is today. A part of me thinks I've wasted a year of my life in some ways. Another part recognises I wouldn't have known what I was looking for but for the pain. Humans put pain behind them for a reason. We evolve around the hurt, the setbacks, the disappointment.

Post hoc, ergo propter hoc.

Did I write this post because I'm fighting a losing battle over sleep to The West Wing?

Without a doubt in this world.