The Luck and the Extraordinary

THE LUCK AND THE EXTRAORDINARY

VICTOR MANUEL GUZMAN VILLENA

If one day we ate apples and they feed us, on the following day it would kill us; if our neighbor was an agreeable man and at the same time a maniac killer; the human life and the society would not resist it; in fact it might not have developed. But the regularity and the normality of the established order it is not all in the human kingdom.

The luck and the coincidence pops in often and mix up the mentioned regularity, provoking "without knowing how or why" events that affect in considerable form our well-being and our adversity. And it is just here where the luck enters in scene. Both the luck and the fortune are evidently vain. As says Horacio: "The happy fortune, is cruel action, and been obstinate on having played its perverse game, always changing its inconstant honors, favoring me now or some one else."

 

The luck is the antithesis of a reasonable expectation. It is evident in contra-indicated situations, events that are surprising because they are opposed to all kinds of predictable situations. Some of the fundamental examples of events that we should surprise are those that are out of our control and those which contingency is inherently eventful.

The luck grows between the probability and the reality, between what it is possible to wait reasonably (what for logic should happen) and what really happens. When both coincide, the luck disappears, the individual who obtains a foreseeable profit is fortunate, but it is not lucky. But when the good thing or the bad thing enters action in circumstances in which the reality disagrees with a reasonable expectation, of that time, the luck, already be good or bad, it is in scene.

Nevertheless, a happy or unhappy event can be a luck matter from the point of view of the recipient, even if it is a result of a strategy debated by others. (A beneficent secret that sends to us a check with an important quantity represents a blow of good luck, although it is something that he has planned for years). in such a way if someone different to the affected person is capable of predicting an unexpected event, it enters in the field of the luck for those that are implied.

THE GOOD THINGS

There are, in general, three ways to reach the good things in life as health, wealth and the success, and similar others: theoretically they can be achieved by means of the effort and the hard work (to the old style), or thanks to the fortune (for birth and heredity), or simply being lucky winning the "lottery of the life". Usually, for most of us and during most of the time, the good things are a fruit of the effort, the planning, the work and the determination.

The luck represents a way of obtaining them more easily, as if it was a question of a "gift of the gods". (And, of course, it works in two senses: what the good luck gives, the bad luck takes it). The luck comes to be a short cut that allows us to reach the good things of the life.

With good luck we obtain something for nothing, an unexpected and undeserved birth. Normally the good things that happen to us are a fruit of our skill, an our effort, while everything bad that happens to us is imputed, consequently, to our defects. But the luck provides an alternative route to us. For those that have the favors of the luck, "a blow of good luck is so good as a knowledge sack" ( says the saying). When someone admits that has good luck, the natural reaction not only is of surprise, but also of pleasing. To have a favor that to take to us as a game of circumstances when we have not asked for, is something that someone has the obligation to find agreeably.

THE EXPECTED

Since the luck implies that the things happen for good or for bad of unforeseeable form, it is deduced that it is necessary to think that the people are lucky whenever someone reaches the success beyond the reasonable level of sense of expectancy that their inherited qualities and acquired conditions would indicate. And on the contrary, those that fail beyond the reasonable level of sense of expectancy that their defects indicate, shortcomings and personal deficits, would be necessary to think that simply they have no luck. Therefore, whenever the things pass for normal and natural couses as someone hopes that should pass, the luck is not in scene.

The luck implies an alienation of the expected, and its place in the stage of the human matters insures itself for the fact that the conditions of the life are irregular, be of social, political or astrological character; the things do not always pass for normal and regular channels. Every one can have a bad day, even big champions like Tiger Woods or Michael Schumacher.

IT IS ALWAYS A GIFT

Does not matter what the good luck give to us, it is always a gift; whenever the luck is implied, it is not required to put ourselves to test our talent not even to realize any effort, and no merit it is in game. On the contrary, whatever the bad luck takes from us, it leaves our intact merits; our worth does not suffer any decrease when the luck is in game, demands neither a decrease of our talents nor a defeat of our effort.

The luck fond of our personal condition, but it does not reflect our personal worth. Alfaro, Allende, Guevara, Lincoln were murdered. Harry Truman, Ronald Reagan the Pope Juan Pablo II survived the attempts of murders. (In case of Truman he went out completely unharmed and it is possible to be said that he was lucky). In this context, no particular merit is added aside either of the dichotomy, or any special defect to other. When we say that it is as well as the luck works, we have said everything.

The coincidence is evident of more notable form when the improbable circumstances happen in fact. We are lucky especially when the things are favorable to us in spite of our inaction, or even more, in spite of the bad advices and the wrong actions. And hence, we have especially bad luck when the things gobad for us in spite of having done everything precise so that they were going out well.

The patient who recovers suddenly in spite of having taken the medicines that were not the right ones, is lucky; the one that deteriorates in spite of being take the precise medication and continue the suitable treatment, has no luck. In such cases, the logic of the common sense of the concrete situation indicates in a direction, while the dictations of the destination indicate in the opposite direction. The functioning of the luck is evident clearly in the favorable and adverse events that do not have to happen "for logic".

Between thousand shares in the stock-exchange some are destined to rise while others not, independently to that the moment is propitious or not. Numerous people have shares. Therefore, always will be losers and winners. And, given the eventful of the matter, the difference between them will generally depend only and exclusively of luck.

What does luck consist of?

WHAT DOES LUCK CONSIST OF?

Víctor Manuel Guzmán Villena

“If nothing stakes, nothing is gained”. “To prove luck” occasionally is something very reasonable, but “to trust in the luck” like a systematical politics to follow is simply a stupidity. What does the luck involve?

To determine that a person is lucky it is convenient to do two fundamental clarifications:

First of all, and as for the person in question, the result that takes place is completely "accidental". There has to be something eventful whenever we speak about luck. (We might not say that an individual is lucky because the mail has come to his house, unless there has happened a catastrophe in which there has lost the whole mail with important messages except that belong of some individuals and this person is one of them).

Secondly, the result in question is of big importance while it is a question of a positive or negative result, a loss or a benefit. (If X win the lottery, has been lucky; if Z is struck by a stone, has no luck; but if we consider a fortuitous event like which a person is momentarily in the shade because of a cloud, in this case it is not possible to speak about luck).

And so, the luck implies three things:

1st) a beneficiary and an affected one;

2nd) an event that turns out to be a favorable (positive) or adverse (negative) from the point of view of the interests of the affected individual, and that also,

3rd) be fortuitous (unexpected and unforeseen).

The luck (good or bad) always provided with a normative element of good or bad; someone has to be affected in a positive or negative way for an event before his execution could be a properly qualified positively or negatively. It is only and exclusively because we have interests, for what the things can affect us for good or for bad; this implies that the luck is in action.

We cannot say that a person should be lucky because finds pigeons in a square, or because sees a cloud on his head, while these phenomena do not affect to the well-being of a person. (It would be very different if he had bet on this matter).

With a normal individual, these slovenly episodes, namely the famous meeting with the windmills, for example, would be a misfortune. But for the knight errant Quixote of La Manchat with his strange madness and his eccentric way of considering the things, everything was for good like demonstration of the seriousness of his dedication to the chivalrous mission.

The suspense that is imposed in this case as for the luck or misfortune serves to support the topic of the luck in suspense: the possibility of benefit or loss is crucial for the luck. An inert element, namely, a rock or a hammer cannot be lucky. There can happen things that preserve them or that spoil them, but the absence of any element of affectivity means interests absence and therefore it discards the entry in action of the luck.

It might compare “the defeat of one negative event” with “one positive event”, and consequently, “the defeat of a positive event” with “a negative event”; the direct and indirect ways of the luck could be identified. (The above mentioned identification turns out to be commendable since, considering the equation to be mentioned above, fail of the negative - positive event, it seems completely appropriate.

Perhaps to avoid to lose is not to win, but it is, without place to doubt, something positive. In any case, the good luck is not a gain or profit of any type, but is take a risk and leaving victorious.