Just Plain Luck

 

“Hey if it wasn’t for bad luck y’all, Oh, I wouldn’t have no luck at all.”  Ray Charles 

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I’ve been thinking about luck while sitting around listening to Ray Charles and icing an ancient knee inflamed from too much weed pulling. I’m having a conference with myself, the kind that leads nowhere but to muddled confusion.   

In my misery of immobility I’m left with only philosophic analytics to arrive at some standard of comparison that distinguishes good luck from bad luck. I purposely avoid interjecting the Providential aspect into the discussion. But I’m leery. The sign on that door says, “Knock gently.” 

So far, I’ve concluded that luck can go either way, a cosmic tossup between the two extremes. Here’s my logic: 

For example, my condition could be seen as a byproduct of luck, not work, either good and bad. Good in that I won’t need amputation of the leg to alleviate the pain, but bad because I will miss a beach walk. So, who can say which adjective best describes this situation? The conundrum baffles the mind. 

There are all sorts of luck. Some swirls in the air we breathe, others in the things we do. Luck’s everywhere.  What would it look like if we could see it? We wouldn’t recognize it, I’m sure. It comes dressed in disguise. It slips in silently, does its work and leaves. Most of us would mistake it for something it’s not. Like opportunity, which often comes dressed in overalls. 

We use other adjectives to describe what’s indescribable. Like ‘dumb’ luck. What does this mean? Is luck so random we call it stupid? Or is it simply silent and mute? You have to look closely to find luck. 

And what’s ‘blind’ luck all about?  If Ray Charles were still around we could ask his opinion. He wrote and sang: 

     Tell ya a slow horse and a fast woman

     Hey, hey, hey lord they sure did let me fall

     That’s why I say, ah…

     Hey if it wasn’t for bad luck y’all

     Oh! I wouldn’t have no luck at all.

But now folks, to lose your sight at age 7, what would that look like: good luck or bad? But what happened?  He learned piano by the braille system, one hand at a time, got famous and left a legacy. One might conclude that luck and hard work are inseparable. Luck always needs the long view, not the short one.

I had a wonderful mother, lucky me. But was the obverse true? She shoved me out of the door for piano lessons early in life. No boy at 10 wants to spend afternoons running scales on a piano when they could be bike riding or shooting marbles. What seemed like bad luck then has been good luck for 69 years. I wish I could tell her that now.

Now I don’t admit to being a musical prodigy like Ray, a fact that was obvious when I picked up the violin at age 72. My audience was the dog who howled every time the bow stroked the strings; and the outside flowers wilted in bitter protest. Luck didn’t follow me here.

We use the term, ‘lady luck’ as if women were the personification of fortune. Which, in staying with my thesis, could be classified as either good or bad luck. A lot of life is a matter of perspective. But most men have seen both sides of luck where women are concerned.  Such experiences are private matters, unless you are nominated for the Supreme Court.

Is it possible to recognize luck?  Perhaps.  But typically not at the moment. It usually smiles or frowns on us down the road when we look back. How lucky are we to have married well, or to have chosen the perfect business, amiable friends and good health?

Is there such a thing as ‘average’ luck? Probably yes, simply because it’s taken for granted. I think breathing might be one of these under-valued benefits, not to mention children and certainly cinnamon toast in the morning. The list is long.

We’re all going to get lucky today. But the signposts on the road out of Eden remind us that luck, like roads, can go both ways. Which will it be today? We’ll find out soon enough.   

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Just plain luck? You decide. But maybe a better description for being lucky is being blessed.

 

Bud Hearn

October 1, 2021