I wonder if others out there feel like things come together in waves of good and bad luck. Luck is something that I hear people talk about as though one can own it, have it or not have it. People talk about luck as though it is the very cause of our good fortune… good things are happening because we are lucky. It’s perverse, in a way, that we do this, because luck isn’t cause… it does not exist in any kind of chain of events as one dominoes in a line amongst others, generating fortuitous consequences. Luck is not a force amongst other forces that we can posses and wield like superheroes. Luck is just the word we use to describe events when they have gone our way, especially when the outcome was against the odds. Luck didn’t bring the event about, it is just the way we interpreted it after it happened.
So when yesterday I faced a dull ache in my mouth from an infection, pain in my eyes and temples from an out of date sight prescription, an email from Paypal declaring that they would be holding funds in my account for 21 days before could withdraw them, an aggressive email from an Ebayer who is trying to fleece me, and discovered that the car MOT had actually run out at the start of the month… it was very, very tempting to feel like some external force was at play, raining on my parade.
Luck is something that we humans have certainly invested a lot of energy in; many cultures and religions have some sort of numerology at play, lucky and unlucky numbers, and preferential numbers. I, like may others, have worn pendants and rings in the past with the purpose of bringing me luck, owned a lucky pair of socks, exercise good luck rituals connected with the sequence I do things in. I guess in there is the superstitious creature that inhabits us all. A human search for cause and effect that sometimes leads us down cul de sacs of understanding. Somewhere in there, when the hourglass of luck was inverted in our understanding to be cause rather than effect, luck became interchangeable with hope and a means for controlling fear and managing stress. A soothing tool (we all need those). And soothing tools are no bad thing… usually.
But does ‘believing in luck’ necessitate believing too in bad luck? Just as luck gives us hope, when the grey clouds gather overhead are we robbed of hope? If that is the case then when things don’t go our way, against the odds, I for one start to feel a bit helpless. The uneasy feeling of not being able to touch the bottom of the ocean with my toes, left to the will of tides and the wind curled waves. When you are convinced things are not going your way, that ocean is not a good place to be. Worse still, worse than feeling things are out of control, is that I stop trying. The inevitability of bad luck extinguishes hope and the energy it gives us.
I am a firm believer in luck, but understand that much of the concept is in how we define it. Perhaps we make it. I tend to equate luck with timing, and feel my belief is partially due to a semi-belief in determinism. Certainly, at times it can seem as if there is really no choice and those who argue that there is always choice have usually not suffered much.
ReplyDeleteI've missed your posts. You always cause me to stop and think Med.
I don't know if I believe in luck or some cosmic force for good or ???? But I do believe things happen for a reason and usually I end up finding out the reason later on.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, your posts always make me think, too.
Where's Med?
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