The Random Variable
This is Steven Petrick Posting.
Random chance is a variable in all of our lives. Very small things can determine the path of our future.
When I was about nine years old I received for Christmas a pair of "boxing gloves" (heavily padded for kids, not the real thing). A few days later, while "boxing" with one of the neighbor kids, I found his blows "ticklish" (seriously) leading to my laughing so hard I could not breathe. I ran across the street to gain some time to breathe, and then collapsed in the neighbor's yard. Right on a sprinkler head. There is a scar from that incident that runs through my right eyebrow, a matter of a half inch lower and I would not have a right eye. My whole life would have been changed from that point.
What are the odds that, in an entire yard, I would fall at the point where that sprinkler head would strike my skull?
There are a lot of such variables. There was a time I surfaced from underwater only to have a can of soda (filled with water since the soda had been drunk) strike me directly in the face. There is scar through the mustache on my upper lip from that incident since it happened that the stamped out edge of the opening where the pull tab had been was driven into my face cutting it open.
Everyday of our lives are affected by random variables over which we have no control. Most of them are largely irrelevant. Some are life altering, some are life changing. We do not know how close we stand on the brink of disaster from moment to moment as we live our lives, but it is the overall illusion of control and safety that keeps us from going crazy.
And that in itself is a random variable.
Random chance is a variable in all of our lives. Very small things can determine the path of our future.
When I was about nine years old I received for Christmas a pair of "boxing gloves" (heavily padded for kids, not the real thing). A few days later, while "boxing" with one of the neighbor kids, I found his blows "ticklish" (seriously) leading to my laughing so hard I could not breathe. I ran across the street to gain some time to breathe, and then collapsed in the neighbor's yard. Right on a sprinkler head. There is a scar from that incident that runs through my right eyebrow, a matter of a half inch lower and I would not have a right eye. My whole life would have been changed from that point.
What are the odds that, in an entire yard, I would fall at the point where that sprinkler head would strike my skull?
There are a lot of such variables. There was a time I surfaced from underwater only to have a can of soda (filled with water since the soda had been drunk) strike me directly in the face. There is scar through the mustache on my upper lip from that incident since it happened that the stamped out edge of the opening where the pull tab had been was driven into my face cutting it open.
Everyday of our lives are affected by random variables over which we have no control. Most of them are largely irrelevant. Some are life altering, some are life changing. We do not know how close we stand on the brink of disaster from moment to moment as we live our lives, but it is the overall illusion of control and safety that keeps us from going crazy.
And that in itself is a random variable.
posted by Federation Commander at 6:14 PM
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