Friday 30 May 2025

There’s no escaping the plain truth. Life sucks and then you die. Woody Allen has this quote about life, how it’s divided up between the horrible and the miserable. I forget how the quote goes. Wait a minute…I’ll just let him tell it:

He’s right. You’re lucky to be miserable.

One night on his show Johnny Carson read this item from a lost and found column of a midwestern newspaper: “Lost dog–brown fur, some missing due to mange, blind in one eye, deaf, lame leg due to recent traffic accident, slightly arthritic. Goes by the name of ‘Lucky.’”

I’ve been lucky my whole life.

I take my luck in stride. I don’t run with it. There’s no point in depending on luck. The house holds the edge. So what’s the point of playing the game? Others love to play the odds. And there are those, maybe just a few, who go for broke every time. And win. Somehow they always seem to win:

“Everything in life is luck.” (Donald Trump)

Donald and Melania Trump. Two very Lucky people. Can’t you tell?

You run with luck. You win. But you also loose. Trumpy’s done his share of losing.

Here’s a quote from another most-powerful-man-in-the-world:

“Love only that which falls to you and is spun as the thread of your destiny; for what could be better suited to you?” -Marcus Aurelius

This, I believe, is a statue of a man with his head on straight.

Old Marcus makes perfect sense to me. Because luck involves others. You are lucky because others are not so lucky. This is just your average everyday good or bad luck. There is another kind. What I call pure luck. Like maybe the grizzly bear charging out of the woods didn’t eat you. Or your terminal cancer vanished. Which means you’re safe where you started, back in the realm of the Miserable. But say you strike gold with a drastic form of pure luck: you won the lottery! Suddenly you’re a multi-multi-millionaire. You’re no longer some loser living your lonely miserable life. Now you got all kinds of choices to make–what to buy, where to live, what deadbeat relative to avoid. You got lucky, sure. But fate has stuck a target on your back. Everybody wants a piece of your ass. You’re forced to hide out. Damn! You were better off back with you had nothing and nobody to worry about.

In other words, be happy you’re just plain miserable.

The only way to beat the house

I confess I’ve got an ulterior motive for writing this post. I have a friend who’s overburdened by troubles. He talks about suicide. I do too but I’m never serious about it. I’d like to help my friend but I don’t know how. All I can do is talk and make stupid blog posts.

I wish I could convince him somehow that we’re all in this boat together. How we’re all part of one great thing. How…somehow...it’s not a zero sum game.

I’m not so beat up as the lost dog Johnny Carson talked about. I’m just an Old Dude. I often wonder how the hell I got stuck in this expanding universe. Living an existence where there’s no rhyme or reason. Playing against the house. And as most gamblers know, the house holds the edge. It aint a fifty fifty deal.

I need to keep reminding myself there’s only one way to beat the house.

Don’t run with luck. Run with a Stoic. Like good old Marcus Aurelius. He ruled the world during a very tough time. He spent most of his days beating back Barbarian hordes threatening the stability of the Roman Empire. He left everything to his son and we know how that turned out, but that’s a different story. Trump’s sitting on a powder keg, too, partly one of his own making. Marcus Aurelius had a way of thinking that might be better suited to the problems of today. He would advise calm where Trump sows chaos. But look at me! I’m running my mouth when I should just stick with the point at hand…and what is my point? Simple. Take what troubles, even horrors, that come your way. Take them gratefully. Take them as if they’re your own special form of luck.

Meant for you.

Only you.

Because it really aint a zero sum game.

Not if you refuse to play by the house rules.

And by the way…didn’t I say this before?…I’ll say it again…be happy you’re miserable.