I am very excited to be writing for the Skeptical inquirer. I have been a subscriber and fan for over twenty-five years. Being a “skeptic comedian”—or a stand-up comic who promotes skepticism in his act, turning my jokes and thoughts into humorous mini-essays—has always been a goal of mine. Perhaps one day I’ll even turn them into a book.
While I love the idea of being re sponsible for my future, creating a path and sticking to it, and having things fall into place after years of working toward them (and even just the idea of plain old “happenstance”), I loathe when people chirp, “See, everything happens for a reason!” Living in California, I have plenty of New Age, unrelentingly “positive” people in my life, and that is great, but this idea assumes some sort of external pre-thought, some magical force, or predetermined outcome in life. Now, I understand cause and effect; like if I don’t apply the brakes, I will hit the car in front of me. But that is not what they mean by this. They mean it in some sort of grandiose “Someone is watching out for me” way.
I have heard countless stories from friends, practically throwing their backs out bending over backward to find a hidden “reason” for something. Every story sounds like this: