Doombus Omnibus

I'm going to relate the story of the unscrupulously -- nay, even dangerously altruistic man, whose decision to let me make a left turn in front of his car has, quite possibly, changed the pattern of persistent misfortune in a particular area of my life forever. Yes, this man should have statues raised in his honor. He would, no doubt, want these statues to be anonymous and we should certainly abide by these wishes.

Build a little anonymous statue in your soul.

Still, before we can get to the story, there's something else we have to talk about. What can be so important? This quotation from an old-time U.S. Congressman from New York, Steven Solarz: "A shlemiel is the fellow who climbs to the top of a ladder with a bucket of paint and then drops it. A shlemazl is the fellow on whose head the bucket falls."

The main difference seems to be one of agency. The shlemiel is klutzy, uncoordinated, and prone to goofy-slapsticky sort of behavior. Being called a shlemazl doesn't say anything about the shlemazl's behavior, about who she is in the world, but only about how the world is in relation to her. Shlemiels bear some kind of responsibility, shlemazls are innocent victims. Wrong place, wrong time sort of thing.

But that isn't necessarily true, is it? Aren't shlemiels ruled by luck to the exact same extent as shlemazls? Let's say you're a clutzy individual. And you're forever bumping into walls and missing the last steps of staircases and falling off your chair. You're indiscriminant, you will bump into anything that meets the simple requirement of being solid and within your sphere of influence. On this particular day, you're unlucky enough to have the solid object inserted into your path by unspeakable forces be a bucket of paint. Not only that, you're unlucky enough to have some person be standing directly underneath this bucket.

Or, to take a less slapsticky example. Vasya and Katya are at a party. They stay way too late -- especially considering that they are driving home. So Katya leaves first. She drives some way home and then passes out behind the wheel. The car veers onto the sidewalk and runs over a little old lady out for a late-night stroll. Katya is guilty. About half-an-hour after she leaves, Vasya leaves the same party, just as (if not more) tired, having had just as much (or little) to drink, and even passes out on the exact same patch of road. However, Katya and the little old lady's body have left the scene, and Vasya's car runs onto an empty sidewalk and lightly bumps into a lightpole. Vasya takes a powernap and gets himself safely home, innocent and carefree.

It is only by completely random chance, then, that Katya is guilty -- because her behavior is actually the same as Vasya's. If she left the party three minutes later, the little old lady would have been farther down the sidewalk, etc. It's either totally random (i.e. luck, misfortune, etc) or predetermined (i.e. destiny, karma, materialistic determinism, etc). But whether it's luck/accident or Geist-manifestation/destiny is irrelevant from Katya's point of view. What is important is that it happened rather than she did it.

Coming up next time: How the nice altruistic man -- if there is such a man -- altered my luck. If there is such a thing.