DESTINY UNFOLDED

                                                            Chapter 3

Destiny - can it be predicted?

            My experience is that if there is anything like destiny then it is unfolding every moment. It unfolds from moment to moment, second to second, minute to minute, hour to hour and day to day. For an example recently three important events were planned for me, not by me, but my department. I was communicated about my participation in these three events only when I returned from my earned leave in second week of July-14. The first event was the high profile Conference of Chief/Principal Chief Commissioners of Income Tax at New Delhi on 21/22^nd July, 2014 and the second event was the Domestic Module of the Advanced Mid Career Training Programme for Principal/Chief Commissioners of Income Tax at IIM, Ahmedabad from 24th July 2014 to 09 August 2014. The third event planned, was the International Module of the above stated training programme at Harvard Business School, Boston, USA. When I joined after availing EL, I started preparing for these three events as they seemed to be in my destiny.

             I prepared for them by first completing on priority my limitation tasks to be completed before September -2014. So many works were to be completed on the personal front also, and one by one I completed them. I had to reserve my road and air journeys. I was to plan my stays, my visits during these stays, my obligations official, family and social to be discharged. Moments passed, minutes passed, hours passed, days passed and the first event which was the Chief Commissioner Conference with the Finance Minister, happened exactly as it had been planned by the department for me and my other colleagues and which was executed by me, my associates and  my colleagues. So the first event which was destined had materialised without any miss happening and as it was planned. But is it so certain that we plan for the things and they happen as we or others for us have planed. I would say certainly not. This element of uncertainty was on several accounts which can not even be counted for certain. But inspite of ample number of uncertainties attached with execution and happening of any event planned by us or by others for us, thing do happen by and large in an ample number of happenings. So the certainty of happening of any event planned by you is also very high. But that doesn’t mean that you yourself or somebody acting on your behalf can make your destiny.

             The uncertainty, even if one of it materialises can annul the entire certainty attached to the happening of an event. As in my example my health was one of the uncertainties attached to the happening of all the three events planned for me. But it was so critical that if I would have fallen ill, I could not have participated in all the three events or any one or two of them. My health’s uncertainty was only an individual’s critical factor, but the Finance Minister’s Health was the critical factor for the entirety of the happening of the first event, i.e., the Chief/Principal Chief Commissioners of Income Tax conference in Delhi as he was the person who was the Chief Guest of the Conference. So uncertainties attached to the happening of an event are large in number, they are across the board and they also are very critical. But still a large number of events happen as they are planned or in a little bit deviated manner. So the uncertain element of the future events is generally not intervening to prevent the events from happening and somehow the world is pulling itself more or less in a planned manner. A child is born, whether male or female attains youth, middle age and finally the old age and death ultimately. Things being started, developed, and finished before any of the uncertainties intervene to stop them from happening.

             But uncertainty still looms large as even the life of an individual is uncertain at any given moment throughout his life, and hence it’s not even possible to plan for anything at all. So what should be the way out? One has to plan and do the work irrespective of all the uncertainties and attempt to execute the plans also. There is nothing wrong in this also. But one has to foresee the uncertainties and vagaries attached to you the happening of the event. Also you have to plan out to meet with the uncertainties and vagaries in a manner that even if they materialise, they at least do not hamper the happening of the event and you are also to met with your expectations. In management language it is called as ‘Contingent Plan’ or the ‘Emergency Plan’. So in a way by having the contingency plans ready to deal with possible uncertainties in happening of an event one can be to an extent reasonably be assured about carrying out what he or someone else has planned for him. Can anybody prepare a foolproof contingency plan? The answer is no! because uncertainties are there also is the contingency plan prepared, however perfect it may be. So you should have a supplementary contingency plan, and there is no end to it. But if one makes out a strategy for implementing the happening of any event then there are better chances or probability of conclusion of that event without hassles. What is one required to have a successful strategy is called as the farsightedness of seeing the uncertainties attached to the happening of the event in the near and distant future. This insight also is partially inherited and partially acquired. Skills can be inherited but more than that skill can be acquired and developed. Entrepreneurship is one such skill which can be developed by experience to deal with so many contingencies of life.

             The highest of the uncertainty is in gambling. Rather one can say that the throwing of dice is totally unpredictable. To see whether any planning can help in playing of any gambling game, I went to a Casino in Goa. The owner of the Casino had a dinner with me. I asked him as to whether one can play any gambling game so as to earn and save money? He said yes one can do and the question is that how much returns one expect from it. I was surprised to know, so I asked what should be the basic principles to be ultimate winner in the gambling games or at least not lose in them. What he told me, I am reproducing them as under.

              1.               The first rule is that one should decide the quantum of money, in terms of         percentage of his total monetary availability which he can afford to lose         withhout being pained to even a little extent and just to have the pleasure of         playing the gamble. 

2.               The second rule is that when one invests in playing gamble one should determine as to how much returns he is expecting from that investment. In general when one invests in FDR he expects around 6-10 percent returns which are quite certain. When one invests in equity/debt mutual funds he expects even higher returns of around 15 to 20 percent but which is attached to only a reasonable certainty. While investing in the stock market since the risk is more of the capital being lost one expects even higher returns of from 30 to 50%. When one invests in real estate the expectations are of an annual increase of around 50% even though the risk of losing the capital is less, because the extent of investment is very big. So once you have determined your capacity to lose the capital if you want to determine the gains you expect from it then they should naturally be lesser than the other high risk capital investments. It can reasonably be fixed somewhere between what you expect from an FDR and what you expect from an investment in equity. So it can be around 15 to 20%.

3.               With this expectation of earning of around 15 to 20% you can devise ways to play the gambling games. Certain golden rules to play these games are given as under:

                       I.  Come with a quantum of money to the game table which you are ready to lose. Out of this money you segregate the money which is the limit till which you will lose and go thereafter and leave the table. Be sure to leave the table immediately and without fail upon exhausting that limit thinking that on the given day you are not supported by the chance factor. Avoid to have a Gamblers Mind set.

                     II.   Examine the game you are playing and it’s to evolve a strategy by which you want to play the game. One of the strategy is to play any game blindly and suits you if your strategy is high risk strategy. But there are other strategies also which are not totally blind. In them if the chances of winning huge sum are less than the chances of losing a huge sum are also less. After risk/benefit analysis one can device his own strategy of earning from gambling and can have strategies for all kinds of the gambling games, which must be followed, as many persons are doing for example in the stock market. Be a strategic player.

                    III.   When the chance favours you on a particular day and you are winning then also you should decide your limit, where after you will stop your greed to win more and get up from the table and stop to play any further. This requires a high order discipline on your greed to have more, win more and test your luck or the chance factor bay and limits. Law of averages starts working at some point of time in every situation and no one knows when it will start operating against you. So be careful and cautious even when the goddess of fortune appears to be smiling on you.

                   IV.  Most people believe that certain numbers, certain days, certain times certain names, certain combinations of numbers, bases on events is their lives are lucky for them. Some are going to astrologists, taro card experts, saints and others to ask for lucky numbers, lucky days, lucky periods etc., from them. These fellows play the gamble in a prejudged manner and hence they come with a very high risk profile of this way (win) or that way (loss). But since their risk profiles are very high some of them win heavily and many others loose heavily. Studies have revealed that the Casinos are running because of such high risk profile players many of whom are the willing losers. So one should abstain from entering into such a high risk profile, if he wants to achieve the target of earning 20 to 30% from gambling games. The profile should be reasonably risk oriented instead of being high risk oriented.

         V.   Though gambling can be one of the ways to earn some income, but it should never be the only way of earning. This means that it should not be made the means of earning the livelihood. As otherwise any failure in the gambling not only makes one bankrupt but his family will also have to face poverty and destitution. So gambling should not be played by the poor and those who are in the risk zone of being bankrupt on account of gambling losses. Rule is do not gamble because you need money, gamble only when you can afford the losses attached to the uncertainty of gambling.

                   VI.     Fishing in the unknown seas is actually equivalent to fishing in the troubled waters. So if you have mastered the playing of a particular game, one should not probe his/her luck elsewhere. Because knowledge and the expertise in a particular game gives one a strategic advantage, which should not be lost.

By following these rules one can minimize the losses one incurs while gambling which is so full of uncertainties. But still we cannot say that we can control the uncertainty even to more than a petty extent. Till that ultimate uncertainty of death of living beings is unveiled, no one can say that we have understood the phenomenon called as destiny, luck or providence. In the spinning of a coin there are only two possible destinies i.e., either head or tail but no one has devised a formula to determine whether the result will be a head or a tail. When you toss it second time successively, the combination of the possible results increases. Now it could be HH, TT, HT & TH. The thing is complicated still further if the coin is tossed thrice. Now the possible combination of results will be HHH, TTT, HHT, HTT HTH, THT, TTH etc., So larger the number of spin of the coins, larger is the uncertainty of getting a particular set of results. So the uncertainty looms large in a broader framework.

            It is because of this uncertainty  attached to the future events that every one desires to and tries to predict them with a reasonable degree of certainty, Astrology, Palmistry, Numerology, Taro Card Reading, Najumi are all the ways by which we try our destiny to be predicted. I have personal knowledge of the principles and concepts of Astrology, Palmistry and Numerology and I know for certain that all the three method suffers from many inherent lacunae which are so glaring that if exposed, one will stop believing in the predictions made through them. All the predictions to be made from the popular predictive methods are based on empirical generalisations and long standing personal observations of the persons who propounded these methods. So many of the predictions made by these methods go haywire or awry.

         But the existence of luck cannot be denied.  As per genetics, one’s chances of coming into existence are probably a few million to one. Given that your parents were born of many odds who somehow managed to meet and hook up and produce you, it is even more of a miracle that you exist. Indeed consider that our species should itself evolve and survive through ages, on this one out of trillions of planets, and you get a true idea of how remarkable your existence is. Don’t be under the illusion though that this makes you special, everything around you is there despite similar odds against it. However, unlikely it is for a specific something to exist, it is inevitable that something will indeed be there. So congratulations as your existence is only out of your good luck. While everything else pales into insignificance beyond the spectacular fact of your existence, we are still not satisfied. We spend our day striving for this or that trivial little things and stressing over unimportant matters. We may be programmed to worry about little things, we are again uniquely fortunate among species to be able to ignore our programming. Honestly, just the fact that we are here should keep us in constant state of elation and wonder. But we get tripped up by vanity. We believe that we are special and that we possess the intelligence to make sense of the world and to rule it. This vanity, in the cosmic scale of things, is either comic or tragic depending on how seriously you take yourself. Take the case of a serious Poker player, who did it to make money, ultimately ended up in learning how little he knew about life. The most important thing one learns from Poker is about the role of luck in the world. Poker is essentially a game of skill, but only in the long run (which can be longer than what you conceive). In the short run, luck dominates. Every action has associated probabilities, and you try to manoeuvre your way through a Poker game in such a way that the probabilities are on your side. Keep getting your money in as a 51 percent favourite and, in the long run, all the money is yours. In the short run, you could get hammered again and again. For that reason, poker players are constantly told not to be result oriented. In life too luck plays a far bigger role than we realise. And as in Poker the management of that luck is the key skill to learn. Luck plays a huge role in football, which is also a game of probabilities. For example, Lionel Messi scored from a direct free kick 1 in 12.5 times. This is the bare number, over a sufficiently significant sample size of free kicks. And yet we cheer madly when he curls one in the goal, and groan and go “What is he doing” when he flips over one way over - even though in larger scheme of things they are the same shot.  While fans and even most reporters don’t get this, Managers do, working furiously to maximise the probabilities in their favours. But fans go by results. Even in cricket every action on a field has a number associated with it. A full delivery outside the off stump has X percent chance of reverse swing into the batsman, Y percent chance of being cover driven if it doesn’t  and Z percent chance of beating the field when that happens. Through a day as the overs go by, thousands of events of different probabilities intersect as we get a result that is determined partly by luck. And yet the people cheer in the slog overs the shot that goes for six and boo the batsman holing out in deep with a majestic lofted off drive.  Therefore chances can determine careers.  Like sport, life also consists of millions of intersecting events with varying probabilities and Luck is a lead character in the drama of every person’s life. The lesson here is not to sweat what we cannot control, to take nothing in our lives for granted, and to make each moment count. And also to be humble, because humility is the only appropriate response to the awesome complexity of the world.  

             What is this luck? Somebody told me that it is the third force which makes the combination of two forces possible so that the event happens.  Giving an example we can say that water molecules are there in the rain clouds but still it’s not raining. Scientists say that unless the molecules join together they will not precipitate as the weight of one molecule of water is not enough to fall down and hence individually all water molecules float in the shape of clouds.  When two clouds collide or one cloud collides with a hill, the collusive force generated leads to water molecules come together and they then fall down in the shape of rain. So if this third force is not operative rain will not be there, even though the clouds may be there in abundance. This is why in some areas to cause rain seeding exercises are done by spraying salt called silver nitrate among the clouds. Salt is very soluble in water and once it dissolves in H₂O the water molecules become heavy by combining with AgNo3 and they immediately precipitate. In a simpler situation in all the trading transactions the money is the force which materialises the transactions.

             Predicting destiny is difficult only where these third forces are not known. Whether these forces are worldly or heavenly is a matter of debate. Sometimes they are clearly worldly and sometimes they appear to be very strange and many a times out of the world and we may call them heavenly. For example death of some persons is so accidental that even doctors fail to understand as to why they died. The birth of a person is beyond the concept of prediction. Profit or loss in any transactions however, is both predictable as well as unpredictable. It has been therefore said by the author of Ram Charitmanas (Tulsidas) that “Loss, profit, birth and death are the things along with fame or ill fame which are only in the control of Providence”.

Is Destiny Inherited ? Even if its so: Is it Fully Predictable ?

            In the Star Wars movies there is a famous scene where Darth Vader says to Luke Skywalker “I am your father”.  Luke screams “Noooo!” but he knows deep down that it is true.  He was horrified even by this thought as he did not want any of Darth Vader’s genes.  But now he realized that he does.  These were the genes of hate and the genes of the dark side, so these were the genes of his destiny now.  So is the evil in the genes inevitable?  This is a big question.

            There is a book on pastoral counseling called “Getting the Love You Want” a ‘Guide for Couples’ by Dr.Harville Hendrix.  This book has a rather disturbing thesis; that the people often marry a spouse who embodies at least some of the negative characteristics of their own parents.  For us even this is bad enough that as parents we have to worry about our children acquiring some of our own negative characteristics, but Dr.Hendrix, with a fair amount of research to back him, claims that our children are also likely to marry someone who embodies our negative characteristics.  Hence you see a phenomenon that a child of an alcoholic will sometimes marry an alcoholic, children of controlling partner, if they do not become controlling themselves, will tend to marry a controlling person.