Monday, January 16, 2017

Baltasar Gracian: Luck

No. 139

"KNOW YOUR UNLUCKY days:  for such there arewhen nothing goes right, and even though the game change, the bad luck does not:  you know them after two throws of the dice, and you retire, or play on, depending upon whether this is such a day, or not.  Even the mind has its periods, for no man is wise at all hours, since it takes luck to think straight,  just as it takes good luck to write a good letter, for all good things have their season, beauty not always being in style, judgment itself turning traitor, now making us too soft, now too harsh: thus anything to come off well, must be of its day.  Just so does everything go wrong with some, and everything go right with others, and with less effort.  All they touch stands ready, the spirit is well-disposed, the mind is alert, and their star is in the ascendant.  Then is the hour to strike, and not to squander the least advantage.  But the man of judgment will not let just one throw augur the day unlucky, or lucky, for the former may have been only mischance, and the latter only happy accident."

-- Baltasar Gracian --
from The Art of Worldly Wisdom


I know it's unfashionable to talk about luck nowadays.  We have other explanations for it, I suppose, but do they really explain  those long sequences of fortuitous or unhappy  events that strike us all at times?  Or explain why some people are blessed more often than can be expected, or conversely, cursed more often than others.  Do those explanations really answer why or do they just provide another more sophisticated way of hiding our ignorance from ourselves, a scientific way of disguising our real answer of "I don't know."

12 comments:

  1. People have invented all sorts of explanations: fate, luck, karma, gods, others, etc. We cannot accept chaos, so we create alternative explanations for all that happens. Otherwise we might go insane.

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    1. truly... except for those of us who like unpredictability... never thought about luck, much... just wondered why everything was the way it is.. did the Chinese 2000 years ago believe in luck? well, i know they did; and still do: gambling and such... i've heard the name, baltasar gracian, but who is he?

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    2. R.T.,

      Good point.

      I wonder why it is that we can't accept a universe without some sort of plan or design.

      Why can't we accept events as just happening, a collusion of various lines of causality, producing the unexpected and unintended consequences?

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    3. Mudpuddle,

      I suspect all cultures at one time or another tried to explain or search for causes for events: Fate, a curse, God's punishment, the position of the stars. . .


      Link to Wiki article on Baltasar Gracian--a 17th century Jesuit writer and philosopher

      http://tinyurl.com/gtr8n2e

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  2. Though I do not believe in lick as such, and I subscribe to all the rational explanations, some days and weeks do indeed seem unlucky.

    I am sure that psychologists and brain scientists would have more to say on why we perceive luck as we do.

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    1. Brian Joseph,

      That's about my attitude also. Things happen. And, I too, have had "good" days and "bad" days.

      Many years ago, a fad appeared, can't remember the name right now--bio something or other--which said that there were three physiological causes for our performance or something like that. These states went up and down and when all three bottomed out, we should stay home and in bed, because anything we tried to do would turn out to be a disaster. The opposite was true when the curves were at the top. I think there was even a way to determine where those three states were at that particular moment. It reminded me of astrology and the casting of one's horoscope.

      That fad didn't last too long.

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    2. maybe it has more to do with where one is paying attention to/at... so many things going on all at the same time, their constancy must continually change whether we notice it or not; the serendipity of where we're looking might determine our judgement of a particular event... or not...

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    3. do you know if there's an English translation of "El Criticon"? coulndn't find one on Abebooks....

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    4. Mudpuddle,

      I remember reading somewhere that there are censors in the brain that filter out many of the sensory stimuli entering the brain. While this does limit our perception of the environment, it also protects us from being overwhelmed at the same time. We apparently can't handle too much at one time.

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    5. i can't remember whether i knew that or not... it's a startling premise, though... what with some obviously having larger and more restrictive filters than others...

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    6. Mudpuddle,

      I was a psych major and probably read it in a Sense and Perception course.

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  3. Mudpuddle,

    No, I am not aware of any English version of "El Criticon."

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