Peddled by fatalists and the crown jewel of soothsayers, this intangible and sublimely binary concept is, like a depthless wellspring from which we eternally withdraw, or notch, in strokes, on some intrinsic and archetypal tally, merely a reverent explanation of the inexplicable. By surrendering our autonomy to such an arbitrary doctrine of duality and elevating it to an echelon of omnipotence we unleash a certain blind naivete. Like post-modern philanthropy, there's no expectation of repayment, or sacrifice, or atonement. But we forget, in our microcosmic navigation of this inherited entropy, that to assign a pretext to serendipity or calamity is to forsake our relative responsibility, and to insist that a windfall or an inconvenience originates from anything other than chaos is to deny an essential liability to the sentient self.