Plans. AKA The Post With No Direction.

Plans.
Death Cab has them. Harvey Dent has them. Your Mom has them and your Dad has them and your grandparents had them.Your children will have them.

I have a love-hate relationship with plans. I need them for stability; I make more lists than anyone else I know. It seems as if, as long as there's a plan, everything will turn out all right. If it's on the list, somehow it will get done, and even if it doesn't get done, at least it was on the list. At least I planned to do it. And as I listened to the haunting, soothing melody of What Sarah Said, I began to think about the Joker.

"It came to me then that every plan is a tiny prayer to Father Time."
Death Cab for Cutie

"Do I really look like a guy with a plan? You know what I am? I’m a dog chasing cars. I wouldn’t know what to do with one if I caught it! You know, I just, do things. The mob has plans, the cops have plans, Gordon’s got plans...Nobody panics when things go according to plan. Even if the plan is horrifying."
The Joker (The Dark Knight)

So why do we need them? What makes plans so very important? Why can't we just go with the flow, just allowing things to come to pass? As I've said before...human beings are strange creatures. We feel a constant need to manipulate our environments, as if letting control leave our hands will collapse our universes. It's not as if our respective universes are always within our own control, even when we make plans. Planning for something doesn't miraculously make it come true...we can't plan things into existence.

There's a positive spin on this, though. We can't plan for the good things that will happen to us, a majority of the time. They will just occur, whether we expect them or not.

I'm not suggesting it would be better to float lightly on the surface of life, allowing things to happen to us, rather than seeking them out. I couldn't do that any more than I can say it, and honestly, I don't see the purpose in trying to suppress my desire to make plans. And I'm not suggesting fate exists, either. I'm simply saying that things will happen even when (especially when) we don't plan for them. I don't think God makes them happen. I don't think Fate makes them happen. I don't think they're meant to be. They just come to pass.