I’ve been thinking...

So, you’re sitting at a poker table, playing Texas hold ‘em. You are all-in, and heads up. The cards are flipped upright on the table. You have a spade flush draw, and your opponent has two pair. If a spade comes on the river, you win. The dealer pounds the table, and then begins to flip over the card...

Lately, I’ve been contemplating the unseen complexity of trivial things, and the driving force behind them. I’m not completely sure how I got on the topic, but I think it’s something that has always stroked my curiosity.  For the sake of simplicity, let’s call this unknown force ‘luck’.

Webster defines luck as: ’a force that brings good fortune or adversity’, or ‘the events or circumstances that operate for or against an individual’, and of course ‘a favouring chance’.

I think most people, myself included, use luck as a jumble of concepts that basically represents catching a break in life, or conversely having something go awry even if you took steps to prevent it. The phrase, ‘wrong place at the wrong time’ springs to mind. But then I started thinking about the process involved in being in that place at that time, and how many things have to ‘line up’, in a sense, for that time or place to even exist.

Similar concepts have been explored in Chaos Theory, and in parallel children’s books, where the bee stung the horse, which kicked the bucket, which splashed on the cow, who killed the farmer, or something, etc., but I think it goes much further than that.

Let’s pick a seemingly isolated event where something trivial goes right, and adversely where something goes wrong—how about stepping out of the shower?

So, let’s visualize Tom. Tom is a regular guy (whatever that means) and he’s taking a shower. He has to be at work at 8:00 a.m., and it is 7:08 a.m. now. Everything goes fine for Tom in the shower; all his body parts are where he left them. After rinsing off, he opens the curtain and steps out onto the bathroom floor. Now, stop for a moment in time, just as his foot is barely making contact with the floor. We are in this situation constantly—the act of putting one foot in front of the other. The interesting part is; we do it with utmost certainty that it will be firmly planted, and we base this on history and repetition. You get out of the shower everyday without a problem—you know your floor, your foot, and your sense of balance. But every once in a while, you slip and fall; it just happens. Is it bad luck?

Some people will tell you that Tom must have been in too much of a hurry, or maybe he wasn’t looking, etc. But why now? Why this time? Tom does this all the time, has he never been in a hurry before? The reason why people like to find a logical source of blame is so they don’t have to face the truth that there is some mysterious undefined series of events that actually guides and controls our lives. Appointing blame is another way to establish control.

Now moving forward from the incident a bit, what if that fall had caused Tom serious injury? What if it killed him, or made him lose his job, or paralyzed him so he could never work again, etc. In theory, the rest of Tom’s life could have been decided by that one step out of the shower. Maybe not the minute details, such as what Tom would have for breakfast thirty-seven days later, but the overall direction or path his life would take. It’s pretty scary if you ask me.

Now going backward from the event, let’s say the fall was caused by a build-up of circumstantial factors. Let’s say Tom had a waterproof bandage of some sort on his foot, because of a cut that had been stitched up. Let’s also suggest that there was a more water on the floor than usual because Tom’s shower curtain had been torn by the cat the day before. Sure, these are all things that could have been remedied, or extra steps might have been possible to prevent slippage, but is it practical?

As a human you can only be so diligent. You may look both ways before crossing the road, but do you also check every crack in the sidewalk to make sure you don’t trip. If you occupy your time with paranoia, and mull over every possible bad thing that might happen to you, you may not lead a life worth living anyway. Besides, usually the incidents are preceded by a series of events too complex for prediction.

And what if you look further back? Some questions that worth addressing: Why did the cat scratch the curtain? How did Tom obtain the cat? What if Tom kept the bathroom door closed? How did Tom cut his foot, and what if he had avoided that incident? The list could go on and on, but the fact still remains that every moment is only possible because of an infinite list of events preceding it. In fact, the writing and reading of this post has just altered all of our lives. The unfortunate part is we have no way of knowing how; we just have to go along for the ride.

Just think of how far back the unbroken series of events goes: your birth, you parents birth, the formation of the country, the creation of earth, life, and the universe. I don’t necessarily believe in fate, but I think it’s safe to say that the entire history of the universe has been leading up to this moment, but it will also be safe to say that about the next moment as well, and so on, until what--the end of days?

Kind of makes you feel small, doesn’t it? That your entire life was but a miniscule, but necessary, link in the chain to get from nothingness to the end. Yet, within your link, several billion smaller events are caused and fallen victim to without the ability to comprehend precisely how, or why. Tom’s action may have lead to water ending up on the floor, but how did the water end up in Tom’s pipes?

I’m always in awe when I think about how artistic and popular culture items become huge viral successes or sensations. Look at YouTube videos that reach 20,000,000 views. Just think about how complex each of those viewers event-chain is to end up on that particular video, then multiply that by twenty million. Same goes for movies that sell-out for weeks, or musical one-hit-wonders that seemingly appear out of nowhere. As a writer I often think about the amount of ‘luck’ it takes to write a successful column, or get a book published. It’s fucking hard. Douchebags who write self-help publishing guides will tell you the most important aspect to publishing is writing high-quality material, but that’s a load of bollocks. Think about how many brilliant writers—and I’m talking about writers who make the ‘best of all-time’ lists—didn’t earn a penny while they were alive, or who received negative reviews or criticism during their prime. Writing/recording/painting quality doesn’t ensure anything. The #1 tip for being discovered and/or getting rich should always be, “Be in the right place, at the right time”. (Either that or become the dictator of a country and publish your own propaganda—check out the list of best selling books of all time. Ha-ha.)

How do you know if you are in the right place at the right time? You don’t. You couldn’t possible keep track of all the events, in all the lives, of all the people potential involved in your success; so there is no way of knowing. Life is a gamble, and every step you take, whether it’s out of a shower, or down the stairs is a roll of the dice; and you’re always all-in. But to that degree, the fact that you are still alive today, and have the ability to read this, means you must be pretty lucky.

Anyway, back to that poker game. Regardless of the outcome of that card, most people would call it luck. With only one card left to come, you have about a 1 in 5 chance of catching that spade you need to win. So, if it does come, you could say you got lucky, but for your opponent, they would suggest he just had bad luck. But now consider all the events leading up to that moment in time: which deck of cards is being used, how many times the dealer shuffled before the hand, how many players there were, etc. What if the outcome of that card was of huge importance? What if $10,000,000 was on the line? Hell, what if a fucking fireball rained down from the sky and burned the whole house down, but just before it did, the dealer turned over a the four of hearts. You didn’t make your flush, and you lost.

I guess that would be pretty bad luck.

-Gerald A. Dinkel (He just says things.)

http://sardonicconnection.blogspot.com/2009/09/93-luck.html