Luck be malady
Graphic by Nic Vandergugten.
In the Bard’s celebrated tragedy, Julius Caesar, “beware the Ides of March” is the well-known warning issued by the soothsayer to the conflicted dictator Caesar. And, with that ominous tip-off, a sense of foreboding is instilled that culminates in the famous utterance of “et tu Brute?” and the bad luck and bloodletting that follows.
But this begs the question; did Caesar make his own misfortune as a self-fulfilling prophecy? And while we’re here, what the heck is luck, anyway?
The present-day conditions in which we live are bruised by diminished expectations and rising unease. Most of us could use a little luck—if not at the job or in our careers, at least in our personal affairs.
For some of us the voice of Clint Eastwood, low and quiet, frequently rolls through our noggin, saying, “Do you feel lucky, punk? Well, do ya?”
Luck seems a malleable thing affected by different cultural and social implications, fantastic beliefs, and intellectual discourse. The general consensus overall is squeamish over the squishy stock that luck liens.
Academics and scholarly types have a tough time justifying a belief in luck. Others prefer to distinguish between luck and chance and view the whole steaming pile through that lens.
Chance, like, say, winning the lottery, is something that the individual has very little control over.
They buy a ticket and relegate themselves to fate. Luck, on the other hand, treads into murkier waters and deals with such irresolute ideas as belief, faith, irrationality, and superstition.
The Romans, in their toga-loving tradition, gladiatorial glee, and polytheistic beliefs, embodied luck in the form of Fortuna, goddess of fortune. The Greeks, not to be outdone, had Tyche, she who governed over fortune and prosperity.
It’s doubtful that Barbara Streisand’s striking rendition of “Luck Be a Lady” was what either ancient civilizations had in mind, but it’s Babs, so whatcha gonna do?
More modern mindsets, like those of the existentialists like Camus and Sartre, viewed luck to be more of an intellectual concept. Luck has more to do with the amount of or lack of control people have in their day-to-day lives, according to this model.
Inevitably, this leads to a deliverance from personal culpability as people blame their failures or their fame on ideas like good and bad luck.
It’s fair to assume that we make our own luck—good or bad—and become slaves to our own belief systems. People who we might consider to be lucky most likely believe in good luck, and their actions and optimism reflect this.
It might be a tad scathing, but the esteemed essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson once remarked that “shallow men believe in luck, strong men believe in cause and effect.”
If only the soothsayer had imparted this to Caesar, it may have eschewed the punching of his one-way ticket.
What’s written in the stars and determines our fate? The truth is inconclusive and anybody’s guess. What’s conclusive is that Lady Luck can be a harsh mistress.
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