Ghesmat

(Ghesmat means ‘destiny’ in Farsi)

I stayed up all night last night so that I can start preparing for the time zone shift ahead of me. 

I’ve been thinking about the concept of ghesmat, and its importance and usage in Iranian culture. Its the idea that we don’t really know ever for sure where our life will lead us, that God has chosen a path for us and our realization of that path is what our life is about.

For example, what are the chances that my flight will arrive on time and leave on time? It could depend on weather. What controls the weather? The shift of the moon, the alignment of the Earth and the Sun, these have factors into our weather, but as we see with our weathemen, it can be impossible to predict the weather with 100% certainty. Let’s call that mysterious element that controls the weather God. God controls what the weather will be like, thus God will control weather my flight gets delayed or not. In the end, when one wants to explain reasonings behind such incidences, one can’t. Thus, Ghesmat.