Reason with That!

I despise, (maybe despise is a little strong), that handy saying that people like to use: "Everything happens for a reason." It is usually spoken with a smug grin, in an all-knowing tone. It's usually spoken when something good happens ("See, I just knew there was a plan, a purpose."), but it's also spoken when something bad happens ("See, there are forces greater than us at work."). It implies that everything is reasonable, everything can be explained. That everything makes sense.

People use it like it is an explanation itself. Or as if it's the last word on some event or happening. It implies that everything that happens is "reasonable." And we know this is absolutely not true.  There are some things that aren't reasonable and can't be reasoned with or away. And some times when we come up with an explanation for events, the explanation explains nothing.

If you believe in the chain of causation, you might say that "every event has a cause, or that every event has a preceding event." That might be closer to the truth of our reality. But it's not very enlightening.

So maybe I strongly dislike the "everything happens for a reason" formulation because it's just a lousy sentence, and doesn't actually mean what people think it means. And it explains nothing!

There are many things that happen for no good reason. Things that are not reasonable. We can trace back some events to some intial "cause," but the cause doesn't necessarily explain anything.  Sometimes shit happens, really bad shit happens (or really good shit happens), and we construct a chain - this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened... 

And we may be able to trace an event to some cause, but sometimes there is no good reason for a particular event.  Unreasonableness and irrationality and chaos, are built into this universe.  We are left to reason with that! So yes, everything happens, and then we grapple for reasons afterwards!