IDEA - 10-7-2020
by
Patrick Ryan
1,448 Words
Luck's a curious thing. Luck plays a prominent role in deciding whether we should blame or praise an individual in daily actions. Two people drive while intoxicated, one left the party at 1 AM and the other left at 1:15 AM. Suppose the person who left the party earlier makes it home safe while the second driver killed a biker crossing the road. In that scenario, I think onlookers would blame the second driver more unanimously. While the second individual just suffered from bad luck. In fact, both should be blamed the same, since the decisions and actions taken were the same. In a more severe case, let's take circumstance and environment into account. An extreme example would be a Nazi soldier operating an execution gas chamber in World War II, and a first responder risking their lives to save others from the burning building on 9/11. It's convenient to say that the soldier needs to be blamed while the first responder needs to be praised. However, let's presume I could swap these two consciousness, the firefighter now grows up in Nazi Germany, and the soldier grows up to be a New Jersey firefighter. There's no way to tell for sure, but it's more likely than not that the firefighter will operate the gas chamber, and on 9/11 the Nazi will be the hero. With this understanding, we find Auto Ventura, the most unlucky person on the planet. You may argue that the unlikely odds of him existing show he has some luck; but for this story, let's only concern ourselves Auto's life, all prior happenstance is credited to his parents, whoever they are. Abandoned as a child, uneducated, never having friends; Auto lived in isolation. Now, at age 25, he questions the role of luck in his life. Place a bet on red, it'll come up black; place a bet on red and black, no doubt, 0 will be called; place a bet on red , black and 0, and the roulette wheel will break. Because of his lack of qualifications, he can't get a job, so he works for a dishonest contractor who takes advantage of him at every turn. fAuto became desperate, he hadn't eaten in three days, but he knows if he tries to steal food, he'll be caught for sure, so he begs. Auto created a sign and stood at a busy intersection. A man rolls down his window, "Why would I give you anything, so you can waste it on boos and smack?!" Then he throws trash at Auto. After half an hour of berating for no money, a woman rolls down her window and starts to dig into her purse, but the light turned green, and the car behind her started whaling on the horn, she said, "sorry," and left without helping Auto. All the homeless shelters were full, he got into a fight over a temporary shelter with another homeless man and he stole all of Auto's possessions in the world. Left with nothing, it began to downpour. At that point, Auto decided to turn to crime, damn the consequences. The next person he saw would get mugged. The next person he saw was an undercover cop in street clothes. That landed him in jail. His cellmate was Jason, the same age as Auto but much more put together. They start talking about luck and how things never turn out exactly as you want.Jason's experience confuses Auto. "Everything goes my way I guess; I always find random $20 bills on the street." Jason has what people would call a charmed life; he won the lottery at the age of 18, fell in love at first sight, and it turned out to be a wonderful relationship; and he found something he loved doing and turned it into a career that made him great money. Yet, this rainy night, the world's most unfortunate man finds himself in the same jail cell as the luckiest man in the world. Both men are miserable, Jason imprisoned for soliciting a prostitute, while he has a caring and loving wife at home, and Auto imprisoned for mugging an undercover police officer. Auto tells him, "Don't worry, at least when you're done here, you can go back to your loving family and a job that makes you money." Jason responds, "Ha, that's funny, all the stuff you've described is stress in my life, obligations, jobs, and expectations; I want your life, nobody expects anything, I can just exist. You're trying to live under this pressure for the rest of your life!" Put Auto in Jason's life, and Jason in Auto's, and they're no better off than they are now. Fortuitous acts occur from time to time and may change a person's life, but there is no link between luck and things changing for the better; because what you think you want might not be as fortunate as you thought.
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