Purely by Chance

Nobody ever made up his or her mind to be lucky. Chance and intention are at opposite ends of the spectrum of probability. Yet there are all sorts of superstitions about ways to influence your luck. 

But even the people who acknowledge the sheer randomness of happenstance rationalize their chances. Otherwise, lotteries would hardly be able to clear their own expenses. The prevailing mindset seems to be: “I know the odds are millions to one against my winning the big prize – but my ticket has as good a chance as any other ticket – and even if some people (or groups) can buy many tickets, I still have my precious chance.”

Obviously, mathematics has very little to do with such attitudes. It’s all emotion, hopes, dreams, and desires. And of course, somebody does win (eventually) – feeding those flickering fires of fantasy.

When Julius Caesar, returning from his conquests in Gaul and Britain, led his army across the Rubicon River into Italy in 49 B.C., thereby declaring himself a rebel against the State, he is said to have uttered these words: “Alea iacta est” – meaning “The die is cast.” The stakes were indeed pretty high: nothing less than mastery of the entire Roman world. 

But that comment also shows Caesar to have had the sporting spirit and be willing to take a chance. Moreover, it shows us that gambling is in no sense a modern entertainment. Indeed, solid evidence exists that types of gambling can be traced back, in China, at least as far as the 3rd Millennium, B.C.

I myself am not a gambler (partly perhaps from being such a tightwad.) I’m the sort of person who would visit Las Vegas casinos for the sake of their good cheap meals, but never risk a penny at the gaming-tables or the machines. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t believe in luck. 

At least a few good things have happened to me in my life that I can ascribe to nothing but pure chance. One was getting a job I hadn’t applied for – teaching two round-the-world semester-voyages on board a “Floating University” that I hadn’t even known existed. A second was winning a drawing for a free Rex-Rotary stencil-making machine, (simply by putting my name in a box at their San Francisco office), which made possible my establishing what for some time was a flourishing business, marketing postcards with my own words and designs.

My third (and perhaps last) lucky break came about, in Santa Barbara, through having a doctor who was also an author and was trying to get a book published. He had the idea of illustrating his book with some of my drawings and expressions and took this concept to a local publishing firm called Woodbridge Press, whom I knew nothing about. Up to that time (1979), I had had no contact at all with the world of book publishing. But the upshot of this chance connection was that Woodbridge decided to publish two books, one of the Doctor’s work (called The Psycho-Metabolic Blues,) and one of mine, under the title of I May Not Be Totally Perfect, But Parts Of Me Are Excellent. That was the first of 11 Brilliant titles eventually brought out by Woodbridge (who became my exclusive publisher). And it all came about through no effort on my part – just good luck.

When it comes to bad luck – mischance – no doubt we could all tell plenty of personal stories on that theme – so I won’t even go there.

Instead, let’s consider the factor that determines just how good or bad an outcome any venture will have: that critical element is called risk. The people who specialize professionally in calculating risks are known as actuaries. The more you look into this subject, the more you will find terms like “odds” and “probability” cropping up. 

The term you won’t encounter much is “chance.” It all gets very mathematical – but to a mathematician or an actuary – there is no such thing as pure chance. Possibilities are reduced to ratios and percentages. The whole universe appears to be driven by statistics.

Why should this concern us? I, for one, am troubled by the paradox that we may call “the certainty of uncertainty.” Some great modern physicists have spent their lives proving that nothing can be proven. I would prefer to live in a world a little more definite than that. That’s why, although I don’t really understand them, I cherish the abstractions we have that seem to be firmly rooted in some kind of certainty – definite numbers such as Einstein’s famous equation and its great, though lesser-known, predecessor, Plank’s Constant.

Can any of this bring us measurably closer to closing the gap between luck and likelihood? Not a chance.