TVCC fire, Beijing. (2009)
Greek mythology contains the personification of fate by means of three sisters, the Moirai - Clotho, who spins the thread of life onto her spindle; Lachesis, who measures and allots a length of thread for each person; and Atropos, the inevitable, who cuts the thread in the final moment of a person's life. What is most interesting is that fate here has complete command over all beings, both mortal and divine. In the Illiad, Zeus grieves because his son Sarpedon is fated to die by the hand of Patroclus. Though he may be a god, and chief of the pantheon, his power is not absolute, he can do nothing, because it is fate that is absolute, and the sanction that fate places on life is immutable, unalterable, and final. All must come to terms with who they are, with what their allotment is. What can at all be called the "pain of existence" can be distilled into the fact that you do not know yourself.