I'm back from our annual Eclectic Convergence NYC bender. Rohan, Natalie, and I spent the last few days fucking around the city and meeting some cool people, like Cory Levy from ZFellows and Alaz Sengul from Garage.

I enter my place and it feels like it has been weeks. I open the door of the mudroom and instantly realize my bike is gone and my helmet is on the ground. I swing my head to the other side of the room and a few letters and Amazon packages litter the ground. There's no way someone stole it. They would have taken the other stuff.

I swear I left it here.

The mudroom is the front part of the house and doesn't lock. Even though I had a slight feeling someone could take my bike by opening the door, I never thought someone would actually do it.

I walk inside the house, hoping that Rahul or Simon had taken it. Maybe I left it in my room to charge. I was wrong.

The moment I made the e-bike by sourcing a normal bike and some Alibaba electric parts, I always had a feeling it would be stolen. I spent the first night reading Ithaca police reports to confirm if bike thefts were common (they were). When I rode it to campus, I strategically parked it in the hidden garden behind the Plant Science building, by the Big Red Barn courtyard within eyesight, or deep in the Terrace outdoor seating area.

I would check on my child constantly hoping no one would steal it. I told people that I'd rather have my computer stolen than the bike. Even while riding it through the tree-covered Ithaca roads and Stewart Ave's uncountable bumps, I felt like its fate was set and I would lose it soon. I could only attempt to prolong its life, nothing more. I guess I was right at the end.

There seem to be two narratives of fate. Some people believe that fate is set and is out of our control. Since it's irrational to fight something beyond your control, it is best to follow the flow — everything that happens to you was meant to happen. Other people, like Karl Popper, disagree. They think fate is made every second. It's your job to set it.

Maybe fate is real, but it only reveals itself once you’ve already acted as if it isn’t.