What Are The Chances
Thursday, August 30, 2007
♥ Thursday, August 30, 2007
What are the chances of life pulling you a fast one?What are the chances of you getting into a car accident today, and another one tomorrow?What are the chances of not being a sports player and winning the sports pageant?What are the chances of coming home only to find that there is a new golden retriever puppy at home?What are the chances that happy events happen 2 consecutive days in a row?
What are the chances of you doing 5 tutorial questions and your lecturer asking you instead for the sixth?
What are the chances of not bringing the umbrella for all those days that rained, and bringing for those days that didnt?What are the chances of being where you always felt you belonged?What are the chances of blowing away every single chance you've got?I could go on with more and more ludicrous examples. And in it... is a reflection of some peculiar cosmic marvel at the coincidences and not so near misses. See the problem with all these examples of what if, is that they arent as peculiar and ridiculous as it sounds. It happened! For a person striking a lottery twice, or being hit by lightning, or recovered from serious case of leukaemia, probably these occurrences are nothing.However, to the common man, the chaplam omnibus person (using some law terminology) the average person on the street who goes about his life without the slightest clue of the tiny miracles that whiff past, these are opportunities to wonder. To wonder simply how did that happen?? To wonder whether life is really generous to those who love it. To wonder whether something bigger could happen to me. To wonder whether there is more! Yes they call it luck, serendipity, murphy's law, coincidence, fortuitious...etc. I call it wonder. I believe terms like 'luck' and 'murphy's law' are just attempts to confine the unconfineable, and to give a language to what cannot be fully comprehended or understood. Yet, because it is a sui generis situation, one and only one like its kind, language demands that there be a separate term to describe this. Whilst others leave it in the abstract, unattainable realm of 'coincidence', i bring in the personal experience of it when i call it wonder. Because its the man who experiences these peculiar situations that has a deep sense of appreciation for it.Simply put, luck is the situation, wonder is the means of being IN the situation. So what appreciation am i talking about? That under the veils of routine and motion, of flow and daily grind, is a force that moves. A force that brings 2 together by chance. A force that moves through the minds and hearts and expresses a certain interconnectedness between "neighbour" and man, samaritan and jew (or isit gentile and jew?). A reality that grants circumstances to make hearts leap, or weep. That you can hear earthquakes happening week after week, that you can conduct a missionary trip and end up being held hostage, that you can be on a holiday for a moment, and in a tragic accident the next... Yes, there is a morbid appreciation for these moments as well. Its quite beautiful if you really think about it. That on one hand you cant be in control of just about anything, but on another you're actually a part of everything. Perhaps thats what mystics or a desert fathers or some sages have achieved. To be in a constant state of awe, to be in a certain spiritual cosmic flow that binds all, that time ceases and heaven is seen in a wild flower (william blake).Or maybe, just maybe its a small part of the human experience. A very fortuitious, serendipitious, wondrous one that is. :)
