Wednesday 20 April 2011

A Pessimist Tries to Get to Grips with Luck

So I tells The Old Man that he should be a Thurber cartoon. (I am a fan of Thurber.) Don't ask me why I tells him this. It just comes into my mind as The Old Man is pondering the nature of Luck.

The Old Man's logic seems to run with the concept that if you narrowly escape Something Bad Happening, this is not Good Luck, per se. Because Real Good Luck would see to it that you would be Nowhere Near the Bad Occurence at the time and would therefore.... Not Be At Risk at all.

My unthinking optimism replies that if you spend your life in bed with an umbrella over your head on the basis that this avoids being in the vicinity of a Bad Occurence....and therefore the Risk of Bad Luck... then some would say you have No Life at all. And no possibility of Any Luck, Good or Bad.

We amuse ourselves - as we do - by swapping dictionaries to find the root of the word "Luck" (Low German) as opposed to "Chance" (Old French).... not to mention Fortune, Fate, ....

And of course the Irony is that I am the more likely to spend my life in bed under an umbrella - of the two of us.

But I am right about The Old Man and the Thurber connection. Cos I find this Thurber quote, don't I. And it's just right for The Old Man.
"He who hesitates is sometimes saved."


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