Today is the seven hundred and fourth anniversary of William Tell shooting that apple off of his son’s head. (And, yes, to arrive at dates like this one must squint and hold their head slightly to the left…) For me this event is inextricably linked to William Burroughs, who in a 1961 drunken “William Tell game,” missed the apple and shot his wife in the forehead, killing her.
The one story about courage and skill in the face of tyranny. The other about how much justice money can purchase.
Einstein famously said “God doesn’t play dice with the universe.” To which Niels Bohr (or, perhaps it was Enrico Fermi) said, “Don’t tell God what to do with his dice.” I have to admit I’m a bit more with Bohr or, maybe it’s Fermi on this one. Life, quite often, really is a crap shoot. Why was I born in America and white and male (if near the bottom rung of society with a drunken petty criminal for a father), in the birth lottery of mid twentieth century, on balance grabbing a pretty good ticket? Why another child born at the same time died of dysentery a week or two later? Or, or… The litany of bad birth options is very long…
Lots of explanations for these things. Because of karma in a previous lifetime is increasingly popular. God’s will is another, still a major favorite in this part of the world. I think I’m going for the crap shoot.
But the question I find in this, is so what?
We find ourselves born into this world of sorrow and joy with no obvious say in the matter, we live the course of our lives; and then, somewhere along the line someone is going to put an apple on our kid’s head and make us take a shot. Or, we’ll volunteer, and put the apple on a loved one’s head all by ourselves, and take the shot.
It appears no matter what that shot will be demanded.
(I’ve been told in heaven the line to file a complaint with God is very, very long…)
I don’t find we get a lot of choices in life. Mostly we’re acted upon. By genes and by circumstances.
That apple, whether put there by ourselves or someone else, is one of those things that are presented to us because we are alive.
But there is some wiggle room. At least in practice. While there may be, and I suspect there is, at some cosmic level a degree of interconnectedness that every blessed motion can be said to be determined, down here at our scale of things, we have choices.
Me, I want desperately to put very few apples on people’s heads.
And, to be clear enough, and skillful enough, that when that apple goes on my loved one’s head, and I’m forced to act, I take my best shot.
How about you?
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