First of all, I had the preorder page for your book open in my browser for a few days. After reading the chat between you and Asher, I just ordered it. Moreover, thank you for sharing this piece with us and our readers. Medium glitched on sending me the submission notice...I just felt an inkling to check the queue to see if such had happened and there it was.

With regard to the lines I highlighted here, and the following lines about free will, I was reminded of this piece I wrote several months ago, https://marcus17043.medium.com/are-we-puppets-bc4baa1bfd09, subtitled A discussion between fate, destiny, and free will in a bar, which essay starts out with "Three marionette masters in my life. Fate, destiny, and free will." (Then I go into a bit of a rant, for which I apologize but decided not to edit out, before regaining my focus). I think you'll enjoy the discussion, which can be summed up with this equation: fate + free will = destiny