The Quest for Human Destiny
             Do pure chance and accidents lead our lives or are they filled with deep purpose and destiny? This has been the question posed on our minds while watching the films Grand Canyon, Ground Hog Day, and Dickens's Christmas Carol. How large a role do the cosmos play in our everyday lives? Do they even care about our fates? Even yet, do these so-called cosmos, higher power, or whatever one might chose to call it even exist? If there's not an ultimate source guiding us and giving our lives' meaning, then what are we working towards? Why are we even here? Why were we born? Why do we die? What in the world are we supposed to do with the time in between? There are so many more questions and even more theories on how to answer them. The films mentioned above and their corresponding stories hit on a few of these theories as I will discuss in further detail.
             Both the story of Gilgamesh and the film Grand Canyon deal with a "loss of innocence". In the film, the cosmos don't seem to care all that much about Mac when he is almost robbed on the street corner of a bad neighborhood. Lucky for him Simon shows up just in the nick of time and after a life threatening talk with the muggers Simon drives Mac to safety in his tow truck. Whereas in the beginning the cosmos seemed impervious one could now argue that they were the ones who sent Simon to the rescue before any harm came to Mac. The cosmos had destined these two men to meet and the odd circumstances simply made the encounter more meaningful. Or of course as I said before Mac just lucked out. Nonetheless, this is where Mac's loss of innocence took place. This loss of innocence is of course in the metaphoric sense of the word because no doubt a man in his mid forties would've lost his innocence long ago. For the first time he came face to face with the possibility of death.
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