Unlike myself, my mother is a believer in divinity and fate, even though she is still secular. When I was a child, her meds triggered a rare, one-in-a-million side effect that put her in grave danger and on the brink of death. Even though there was no guarantee that she would survive, she recovered anyway after being hospitalized in the emergency room.
Being a child, I'm not sure if I was told about this, and perhaps I never actually paid the attention this issue deserved as her son. Her recovery seems to have made her more faithful, to the point of believing that it was destiny that preserved her life—the destiny of not only being alive, but also of being my mother.
I'm my mother's only son, and perhaps, if it weren't for me, she would have had less hope to fight back against the fatal, one-in-a-million chance. A person without a partner or child might have less motivation to mentally fight back against such fatal occurrences.
I fear greatness, you see, because I fear falling into delusion. I don't like being seen as more important than others, due to the risk of arrogance. People have called me arrogant before, and it's not something that I like to be called. It is specifically due to my agnosticism, or my uncertainty of divinity, that probably keeps me away from feeling greater than I might actually be. Perhaps, if I believed in divinity, then I would see myself as someone who is "destined" to be here, "destined" to leave a legacy to the world, and thus, "destined" for "greatness."
I don't know, maybe I am destined for greatness, but a true agnostic would be uncertain of destiny as well. Why? Because destiny is made by divinity, and cannot exist without creation. Perhaps, if divinity is true, then my mother's possible death was a "sign" to make her "appreciate" her life and her role as a mother to me as well. Perhaps, if I was a "lesser being," per se, she would have died, and then I would have been left motherless.
I don't know what caused her to recover. She believes it was Jehovah, the Abrahamic God, that saved her as she prayed and prayed for recovery. It is nice, even as an agnostic, to be seen as important enough by a divine being to spare my mother, while other horrors in the world occur on a daily basis. Shootings, murders, abuse, traumas, torture—all may happen daily across the world, and yet it was I whose mother was saved; I, who is important enough to deserve to still have parents, when I could have lived only with a father and without a mother.
Why me? What is within me that possibly makes divinity appreciate me more than any other of one's unfortunate counterparts? I'm not sure if I'm that special, to be honest. I just have a lot to write, a lot to communicate to the world. I wouldn't be surprised if those whose parents died also have much to produce.
All that is certain is my gratitude for still having a mother, when in an alternative reality, I could have been left without one.
No worries, folks, she doesn't hide this fact, so I don't need to ask for her permission to confess this. In fact, she lectures it to audiences; she's a moderately-known poet.
Still... I wish that I wouldn't ever fall to delusion, even if the concept of greatness is very tempting. A delusional philosopher is an incompetent seeker of truth, who sees truth where there is falsehood. Perhaps a theist would thank divinity for allowing one's mother to live, but I'm not a theist, and I have no reason to thank an entity whose existence I'm uncertain of. Rest assured, if I was a believer, I would have.
Since I take meds of similar nature, with no hope of independence from them, then this... this could happen to me, as well.
