The queen owns all the swans in England. This must include the black ones. She uses sheep to keep the lawns trim, or was it goats- even so there must be a black one in the herd. I think Taleb is onto something. Maybe I am a black swan? Maybe I’m just a duck that think’s it’s a swan. My cats’ middle name is Waddles. Countless humans have accused me of quackery, but I don’t understand the language, so I must speak chicken (and a little peacock). Well, if it struts like a rooster and sings like a mockingbird, it may just be a Phoenix.
“Ever heard the old trick question, "which weighs more a pound of feathers or a pound of gold?"
The answer is supposed to be neither, because both would be a pound, yet that answer is technically incorrect.
Gold is universally weighed using a different measurement system than most other materials. It is weighed using the troy system, and troy ounces.
This system is measured so that 12 troy ounces makes up 5760 grains to the pound, while the common measurement for feathers would make them equal to 7000 grains to the pound.
Thus, a standard pound of feathers technically weighs more than a pound of gold!
And just now I have come to discover, I am mature enough, informed a bit, I am shown clearly and unavoidably, that predictions, planning, forecasting, and intentions are all just busy-body-bee-hive activities. I’ve subconsciously known this, like you, rationally, anything goes, right? That’s why we have “Murphy’s Law”, “margins of error” and certitudes like “more or less” and countless (literally uncountable) ways to say the same thing-‘I guess’…
Yet I have not been a great planner. I have been a better gardener, planting seeds and then amazed when they grow into more than I initially ‘anticipated’. I have what I need and want. I recognize continuously wanting more is an American affliction and I quarantine myself if any symptoms arise.
I think Karma is a great concept, instant karma even more so. Just like you I don’t know for certain, but I sense that there’s some higher form of justice-or maybe purpose. That is why planning is useless really. I have taken many dumb risks and survived. I took the largest calculated risk of my life and am still in a free-fall, but learning to slow it down and look around. I believe that we should all believe in ourselves first before we try to go around believing in other things that cannot be proven.
It could be the butterfly effect. I can feel invisible strings. I think science and philosophy are inextricably intertwined but have been made thin as individual strands by the constant resistance to each others symbiotic connection, over the last 150 years. Even as a layperson I feel obliged to try to understand as much as I possibly am able to of both fields, of their shared territories and studying poetry, the middle ground in which they both dance. I do not expect to discover anything new, perhaps it's all just déjà vu.
I think if I think things will work out, they already have, maybe the way they were supposed to, or maybe just the way I hoped or planned. Being optimistic is only half the glass, but it’s the replenishing part. Is there such thing as luck if anyone can be born a black swan? Why do we bother being pre-occupied by our own conventions, nose in the microparticles instead of eyes wide open, terrified and exhilarated at the taking the biggest risk possible, to try, to go for it, to give yourself permission while you’re here to do what you want with your life. That is its own reward.
Risk is an irrational calculation. We are all accidents about to happen. Will is not free. Exposure is embarrassing. Jeopardy is a game show. A gamble is an investment. Possibility is the address of Emily Dickinson. One’s fortuity is directly proportionally to how fortunate they feel, minus the scruples paid in interest. Uncertainty is certain.
“Hope is the thing with feathers…”-Emily Dickinson
1st Image photograph By PookieFugglestein (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.
2nd Image, drawing via Wikimedia Commons, c. 1885, sourced uncertain.
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