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Musings Report 2017:19 5-12-17 Chance, Fate, Destiny: On Almost Getting Killed
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For those who are new to the Musings reports: they are basically a glimpse into my notebook, the unfiltered swamp where I organize future themes, sort through the dozens of stories and links submitted by readers, refine my own research and start connecting dots which appear later in the blog or in my books. As always, I hope the Musings spark new appraisals and insights. Thank you for supporting the site and for inviting me into your circle of correspondents.
Chance, Fate, Destiny: On Almost Getting Killed
As we all know, death often comes on an ordinary day like any other. There are no external portents or warnings, it arrives unexpectedly.
Most of us have had near misses in life, some closer than others. Many of these involve vehicles, which kill tens of thousands of people in North America every year and maim thousands more.
Globally, the number of vehicular deaths and injuries are astronomical. Our sister was killed in a one-car accident in 1968, so this everyday avenue of death is not an abstraction.
Films occasionally capture this randomized nature of death on ordinary days on ordinary roads, but in general films depict dramatic, often violent death in war, in hospitals, etc.
Accidental death often strikes in mundane activities that are viewed as nonhazardous. A hunter loses his footing on a familiar mountain trail, a swimmer in a lake is struck by a power boat, a river outing ends in a drowning--these are accidental deaths drawn from my own life.
All this stems from my near-death miss on a very ordinary day at an ordinary stoplight I've been through safely dozens of times.
The intersecting street comes down a hill, rather steeply as it approaches the stoplight. My light turned green, and for some reason I hesitated for a few seconds before advancing into the intersection. Just as our car edged forward, a large Jeep roared downhill through the intersection at about 50 miles per hour.
The driver obviously didn't see the light, and didn't even tap his brake. I didn't see the speeding Jeep because the treeline and slope obscure all but the pavement right in front of the stoplight.
Our previous car had been rammed by a large van while my wife was stuck in traffic back in December. That driver-error accident totaled our car; very fortunately, my wife escape injury.
There is no way we could have escaped injury or death being broadsided by a heavy vehicle traveling at 50+ miles per hour.
All the options you might have taken come to mind: my wife had suggested we take a different route, one that would have brought us to this same intersection but probably at a different time.
We might have left the store a few minutes earlier. We might have chosen to go somewhere else. But we didn't.
If one of us had survived the crash, the survivor would have undoubtedly been tortured by the thought that the slightest variation in our route--being held up at a previous stoplight, for example--would have saved us from the fatal collision.
This element of random timing and chance, with the possibility of Fate or Destiny playing a role, brings to mind the 1927 book by Thornton Wilder, "The Bridge of San Luis Rey," in which a monk who witnessed the accidental death of five people when a rope bridge collapsed decides to research the lives of each in an effort to discern a supernatural reason for their death, i.e. God's Plan.
The effort results in an enormous book that gathers dust in a library. It is left to the reader as to whether each death was chance--being in the wrong place at the wrong time--or if Fate or Destiny had a hand in the death.
The question has a long history in philosophy and Christianity; the debate goes back to Augustine and the Reformation, in which some believers concluded that human life was predestined, and our only role was to seek God's grace.
Modern philosophy tends to embrace the randomness of a universe without a plan.
Interestingly, biographers of Winston Churchill and Douglas MacArthur (who each risked being killed in war) note their belief in their own destiny, a belief which made them fearless. (Though MacArthur picked up the moniker Dugout Doug, eyewitness reports support the view that he often placed himself in danger of snipers. He also served on the front lines in WWI.)
Is Destiny generated by belief, or is it a supernatural awareness? Or is it nothing but a helpful illusion to stave off the terrifying randomness of death?
I am not proposing an answer; that seems to be highly individual. But I do recall being aware, at the one critical moment before I saw the speeding Jeep, that I was intent on being more patient (focusing on being more patient is one of my mantras).
Did that thought save our lives? Perhaps.
It's interesting that Thornton Wilder himself suggested a "live for the moment" philosophy: "My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy your ice cream while it's on your plate -- that's my philosophy."
Let's be grateful that Death didn't visit us on an ordinary day--today.
Summary of the Blog This Past Week
Mao and the Middle Class: What's the Source of Political Power? 5/11/17
How Higher Education Became an Obscenely Profitable Racket That Enriches the Few at the Expense of the Many (Student Debt-Serfs) 5/10/17
What's Killing the Middle Class? (Part 2) 5/9/17
What's Killing the Middle Class? (Part 1) 5/8/17
Best Thing That Happened To Me This Week
Counting myself among the living!
Market Musings: Checking in on Gold
The consensus among proponents of gold (a.k.a. gold bugs, a club I have been identified with by virtue of my view that many currencies will go the way of the Venezuelan Bolivar, i.e. a 99.5% decline in purchasing power), is that the price of gold is being manipulated by central banks to mask the decrepitude of the fiat currency system. There is certainly plenty of evidence for intervention / manipulation, but let's set that aside for the moment and focus on the traditional drivers of gold's value: fear, interest rates and inflation.
As a general rule, gold does well in inflationary times, as a hedge against high inflation. Gold also does well in times of fear/panic, as the "flight to safety" favors real assets such as gold.
Interest rates impact gold in this way: if interest rates are near-zero,when adjusted for inflation, there isn't much of a premium offered to those selling gold to buy interest bearing bonds.
When interest ticks higher, however, the appeal of earning interest makes no-earnings gold relatively less attractive, if inflation is benign and complacency in the financial realm is the order of the day.
So here we are in the midst of cloaked intervention, low inflation, rising interest rates (at least in the U.S.) and widespread complacency / belief in a bullish global "reflation" trade.
Gold appears to be hovering at a critical point here on the weekly chart.
Back in January, when gold was in an uptrend, I noted that for the rally to have legs, gold would have to close definitively above the 50-week moving average around $1260.
In April, I noted the next level of resistence was around $1300.
Alas, gold reversed near $1300 and has now slipped well below both the 50-week and 200-week moving averages. This is undeniably bearish.
The MACD is dangerously close to moving below the neutral line, where bad things tend to happen--for example, steep declines.
Meanwhile, we discern a giant wedge (pennant) forming. Perhaps gold will noodle around within this wedge for a few months before breaking out of it to the upside or downside.
From Left Field
Why We Should Be Concerned About Low Oil Prices -- Gail T., worth a careful read...
How strange that capitalism’s noisiest enemies are now on the right -- strange, or inevitable?
Revealed – the capitalist network that runs the world
The work, to be published in PLoS One, revealed a core of 1318 companies with interlocking ownerships (see image). Each of the 1318 had ties to two or more other companies, and on average they were connected to 20.
Wars are not won by military genius or decisive battles --Lord Nelson was a master of logistics and supply....
The Robot Revolution Will Take Your Car, Your Mom’s Car, and All the Oil in 13 Years --maybe...
Olivier Roy — French elections: Catholics vote Catholic, Muslims vote secular --people vote their pocketbook and values...
Seneca: On the happy life -- Stoics were focused on the happiness of a life well-lived...
The end of oil is closer than you think -- or at least the end of cheap oil...
The world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data -- until it isn't....
Platform Cooperativism
Among all the problems with 21st-century work — the ballooning of the low wage service sector, economic inequality, the crumbling of worker rights — the main problem really is that there are so few realistic alternatives. What has been missing from the debate about the future of work is an approach that offers people something that they can wholeheartedly embrace.
A Perspective on Electric Vehicles --lots of loss in the system...
Why we’re not going to Mars -- too hostile,too many redundancies required to survive a mishap or failure...
Magnets and Marbles ! - YouTube (4:04) -- well worth a watch...
"My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy your ice cream while it's on your plate -- that's my philosophy." Thorton Wilder
Thanks for reading--
charles |
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