On chance

Days before he died, my estranged father asked me what I thought about the concept of chance. Or was it whether I believed in luck? My thoughts drifted towards other, indescribable things. I was in London, of all places, sitting at a table among three others who were supposed to be family, but to me they felt little more than strangers. As if brought together by nothing other than chance. I don’t think it occurred to me then, but my father had been a gambler his entire life, so it makes some sort of sense that he was thinking of luck as he expired from an aggressive illness. Cancer is, in many ways, a game of chance. A gambler’s worst nightmare, the game with no winning hand. I didn’t much care about my father, nor do I care about his memory, but I have recently been infected by obsessive musings on chance. Possibly a congenital condition. How come that one seemingly random occurrence can lead to another that feels as inevitable as death? Up until recently I would have bet my life on the fact that there was no such thing as luck. Or, that there is only luck, therefore the concept is meaningless. I thought of luck as that which I cannot expect. Or control. Now I’m growing increasingly fond of the thought that luck is the product of relinquishing control. I am embarrassed by the triteness of this claim. Not expecting anything is the most fun I’ve had in a long time. Looking without searching, rolling along with the dice. Family is the material manifestation of luck. Try as you may, you never get to know what is going to happen. You stick along for the ride, for the most part. I think he asked whether I believed in the difference between good luck and bad luck. Deathbed philosopher. It is a good question though. For a gambler, good luck is a winning streak. Bad luck is losing everything. But is it really luck when you know, must know, that the system is rigged against you? Life could be seen as being rigged against you to, I guess. It is a losing game, after all. Triteness incoming. That must be what makes it special, the inevitability of the loss. There was a breaking point in my life when I decided to let my life be run by chance. I’ve been having a grand time ever since, but I’m not sure how long it can last. It seems like a single player game.