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Eukara Vox -> Issue 51 - Luck of the Believing (Tolan) (3/1/2010 16:56:50)
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Luck of the Believing
By J. M. Tolan
Luck is... An interesting thing.
As you've probably found (Or will find, if you haven't read far yet), the amount of superstition surrounding luck on Terra borders on the absurd. From charms to rituals to ingrained beliefs, it seems like everything can be taken as unlucky if you want it to be. And most of them seem arbitrary; black cats, ladders, and mirrors would have little else in common otherwise.
Even the charms to help luck suffer from a lack of sensibility. I mean, really, couldn't you put that horseshoe to better use on a horse? Then it could be both lucky, and useful. And do you really have time to go searching through a field of tiny plants looking for the one-in-a-million freak? And come on... What kind of heartless monster cuts off a cute little bunny's foot just to put it on a keychain?
Personally, I am of the belief that luck falls under two separate, and entirely different, columns; confidence, and miracles.
Confidence luck usually manifests in charms. The holder of the charm believes it gives them luck, and this gives them a boost in confidence. It's the confidence boost, and not the charm itself, that manifests. While the charm may be useful, the effect can be accomplished without it, and it would certainly save one bunny a good bit of pain.
I don't mean to say those who find charms useful should not use them, of course. If it works for you, it works for you. But to say that the charm itself is the reason is just patently false. The minute the user stops believing, the charm looses its power, because it looses the ability to boost confidence.
Miracles, on the other hand, are what others might describe as "pure luck". They are unquestionably good things that happen to you at precisely the right moment, and to many this may be called "being lucky". But these, I would say, are not random events. If they were random events, they would be luck, but they simply aren't. If things were left to chance, these moments of "luck" wouldn't happen nearly as often. And yet, they do; even if they're small, people catch breaks much more often than they miss them.
This, I am convinced, cannot be random. No matter how small the moment of "luck", the great tendency for it to be good rather than bad implies that there is something larger at work. Some kind of intelligence, guiding it to be so. And if there is an intelligence guiding it to be so... Well, is something not random still luck?
At the end of the day, I suppose, it comes down to, what you look for, you will find. You may find luck, or a lack thereof. You may see magic, or a boost in confidence. You may see random chance.
Or you can see miracles.
*Editor's note: Views expressed here are solely the views of the writer and does not represent The Zardian or AE Entertainment.*
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