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When will things get better? History teaches us that they will and they won't. Here's the bird trill of April and the snow shepherd of December. When will things get better? The sky is still and grey. Some say the storm will pass. Some say the storm has only begun to rage. When will things get better? They will and they won't. We're tied together and untethered. This is what history teaches us. Read the letters. This is fate and free will. This is human weather.
I would have more hope of things getting better if we realized we are all tied together. The "untethered" seem to hold all the power.
I think you might be might be making this more complicated than it is. Scholars, theologies, philosophers, poets, et. al., have debated and discussed fate and free will (and fate versus free will) from time immemorial. That's what I mean by "letters." There's no specific text for me to reference because pretty much every book is about fate and free will (among other thoughts). Off the top of the head, I think of Hamlet: "To be or not to be. That is the question." I think of Buckaroo Bonzai: "No matter where you go, there you are ." Dickinson: "Because I could not stop for death/death kindly stopped for me." Calvin & Hobbes: "Isn’t it strange that evolution would give us a sense of humour? When you think about it, it’s weird that we have a physiological response to absurdity. We laugh at nonsense. We like it. We think it’s funny. Don’t you think it’s odd that we appreciate absurdity? Why would we develop that way? How does it benefit us?"