This comparison of different understandings of "luck" really resonates with me. I have a personal experience that, when I talk about it, I often mention the paradoxical levels of "luck" involved. Given this is a lazy Sunday, I am taking the luxury of typing it all out. Content warning: badly written self-centred personal anecdote involving serious injury and death.
TL;DR: I was almost killed in an accident due to terrible circumstantial luck (wrong place, wrong time), I survived with no medical sequelae thanks to incredible outcome luck (great doctors), and with no psychological trauma thanks to partially-learned partially-intrinsic ability to accept circumstances out of my control.
Part 1: TERRIBLE CIRCUMSTANTIAL LUCK
In late 2019 I was on a long-weekend trip to another city in my country, in which me and some old friends who were living elsewhere were meeting up. While I was there, I was walking on the pavement at around four in the afternoon and I was hit from behind by a car at a speed of ~40–50 km/h (the driver had briefly lost consciousness, there were no drugs or alcohol involved). Last thing I remember was being in the area walking normally before the accident; I do not remember anything about the accident itself nor the car bursting onto the pavement.
The impact left me with a broken hand and a fractured skull, and I was fully unconscious (GCS of 3) when the ambulance that rushed me to hospital. According to eyewitnesses I believe I was unconscious from impact. A CT scan in hospital showed I had an epidural haematoma of 19mm (bleeding inside the skull, pressing against the brain) which was pushing my brain midline by 3.7mm to the other side. I was taken to the operating theatre and was undergoing emergency neurosurgery ~2 hours after the accident.
This bad luck was even worse than that of a plane crash. With a plane crash, you were unlucky to fly on that aircraft, but in my case literally anything I had done differently that day, to the very last minute, could have led me to being at that same spot 1 minute later or 1 minute sooner and thus could have saved me from the accident.
Part 2: INCREDIBLE OUTCOME LUCK
If you know anything about TBIs, after reading my description above you may already know I'm lucky to be able to type this. And if you don't, let's put it this way: after surgery, my parents and my partner at the time (who flew in as soon as they heard) were warned by the doctors that though surgery had gone well they had to be ready that I may be left with severe long-term sequelae. The doctors warned them that I may need training to be able to walk and talk again, and it was impossible to tell to what extent my personality and mental capacities may have been damaged. There was a chance I may need some level of special support for the rest of my life.
And yet, as soon as I came back from anaesthesia, it seems that I was able to recognise everyone and I was trying to escape from my hospital bed—needing to be physically restrained by hospital staff—and loudly demanding my release. Apparently these are common reactions after waking up from a concussion. Post-op I was in ICU for 1 week and in normal hospital wing for another week. I have no memory of the first half, but it appears that all tests of cognitive ability were coming back extremely promising and signalling a shockingly good recovery.
Don't get me wrong, I was in a terrible state, with a massively swollen skull, clumsy, no sense of smell (before it was cool) due to damaged olfactory nerves, and my full recovery would take many months of rehab. But the fact remains that, probably in a large part to the amazing skill of the neurosurgeons and their team who did an emergency craniotomy on me, I had no perceptible brain damage. Every doctor who saw me in the followups would say how surprised they were after reading my clinical history of the event.
Part 3: GREAT CONSTITUTIVE LUCK
Some of my first memories of when I was in hospital (at first I had no idea why I was there, it felt like a no-context dream state) was that, when asked what I wanted for my meals, I would intentionally ask for fish because I was aware that omega-3 fatty acids are good "brain food"—and apparently I was brain injured? In other words, even not knowing why I was there, my mind was already focusing on improving my chances.
More important than this was my long-term well-being in the days, weeks, and months after the event. I have left out an important detail so that it didn't distract from the point I was making, but it was not only me who was hit by the car: it was me and one of my friends whom I had not seen in years, and she died on the spot.
My partner intentionally didn't tell me this detail until after I was released from hospital and we were spending a night at a hotel. She wanted to tell me only when she was sure I could fully understand what had happened (for which I am grateful), and it made me terribly sad to head about it. Now, what made the initial circumstantial luck even worse, was this: it was I who suggested travelling to that specific city to meet up. And guess why me and my friend were on that pavement at that specific moment? We were walking to pick up the rental car in the rental place at which I had chosen to make the reservation.
As you can imagine, all these things are a recipe for disaster regarding traumatic memories and needing years of therapy. I had suffered an unexplainable severe accident which left me unable to work and doing rehab for months ("so unfair! Why did this happen to me?"), my friend whom I had not seen in years —and mother of two young sons— had died in the same event ("why did I survive and not her?"), and I had made two of the arbitrary choices that led us both to be in the wrong place at the wrong time ("I am ultimately responsible for what happened!").
And yet, thanks to having internalised ideas of stoic philosophy —and to some extent, thanks to my personality— I never believed any of the italicised thoughts in parentheses above. My partner and her mother, as well as a friend of ours, all initially insisted that I should look for psychotherapy to deal with the situation —not in response to any observation of my behaviour or feelings, mind you, but just because it is "normal" to need therapy after going through a traumatic event. But I didn't need therapy, I was fine. I was able to completely accept my radically new circumstances that I had to deal with, as well as having no feelings of guilt over what was simply a series of fucked up coincidences. In the words of Epictetus, "some things are in our control and others not". How I ended up in that situation was not in my control.
This is why I hate mixing vehicle and pedestrian traffic and why I don't feel safe on the sidewalk. I think it's lunacy to have vehicles driving over foot paths in front of grocery stores. The vehicles have no reason to be there but the establishment directs vehicle traffic right through the main chokepoint in front of the entry doors. I have witnessed workers and shoppers getting assaulted by vehicles numerous times at my local Kroger. Still waiting for the lightbulb to come on.
That's not what they mean. They're saying, inside of a parking lot, cars can get into and out of the parking spaces solely by driving in the aisles and outer vehicle paths. They don't need to drive directly in front of the storefronts at all. People on foot have to walk directly in front of the storefront because they need to go inside. Making the innermost path in parking lots a pedestrian only path and restricting motor vehicles to the outer parts of a parking lot would be a much easier win than legalizing jaywalking and trying to get rid of crosswalks to make actual streets pedestrian centric like they were a hundred years ago.
Comments
This comparison of different understandings of "luck" really resonates with me. I have a personal experience that, when I talk about it, I often mention the paradoxical levels of "luck" involved. Given this is a lazy Sunday, I am taking the luxury of typing it all out. Content warning: badly written self-centred personal anecdote involving serious injury and death.
TL;DR: I was almost killed in an accident due to terrible circumstantial luck (wrong place, wrong time), I survived with no medical sequelae thanks to incredible outcome luck (great doctors), and with no psychological trauma thanks to partially-learned partially-intrinsic ability to accept circumstances out of my control.
Part 1: TERRIBLE CIRCUMSTANTIAL LUCK
In late 2019 I was on a long-weekend trip to another city in my country, in which me and some old friends who were living elsewhere were meeting up. While I was there, I was walking on the pavement at around four in the afternoon and I was hit from behind by a car at a speed of ~40–50 km/h (the driver had briefly lost consciousness, there were no drugs or alcohol involved). Last thing I remember was being in the area walking normally before the accident; I do not remember anything about the accident itself nor the car bursting onto the pavement.
The impact left me with a broken hand and a fractured skull, and I was fully unconscious (GCS of 3) when the ambulance that rushed me to hospital. According to eyewitnesses I believe I was unconscious from impact. A CT scan in hospital showed I had an epidural haematoma of 19mm (bleeding inside the skull, pressing against the brain) which was pushing my brain midline by 3.7mm to the other side. I was taken to the operating theatre and was undergoing emergency neurosurgery ~2 hours after the accident.
This bad luck was even worse than that of a plane crash. With a plane crash, you were unlucky to fly on that aircraft, but in my case literally anything I had done differently that day, to the very last minute, could have led me to being at that same spot 1 minute later or 1 minute sooner and thus could have saved me from the accident.
Part 2: INCREDIBLE OUTCOME LUCK
If you know anything about TBIs, after reading my description above you may already know I'm lucky to be able to type this. And if you don't, let's put it this way: after surgery, my parents and my partner at the time (who flew in as soon as they heard) were warned by the doctors that though surgery had gone well they had to be ready that I may be left with severe long-term sequelae. The doctors warned them that I may need training to be able to walk and talk again, and it was impossible to tell to what extent my personality and mental capacities may have been damaged. There was a chance I may need some level of special support for the rest of my life.
And yet, as soon as I came back from anaesthesia, it seems that I was able to recognise everyone and I was trying to escape from my hospital bed—needing to be physically restrained by hospital staff—and loudly demanding my release. Apparently these are common reactions after waking up from a concussion. Post-op I was in ICU for 1 week and in normal hospital wing for another week. I have no memory of the first half, but it appears that all tests of cognitive ability were coming back extremely promising and signalling a shockingly good recovery.
Don't get me wrong, I was in a terrible state, with a massively swollen skull, clumsy, no sense of smell (before it was cool) due to damaged olfactory nerves, and my full recovery would take many months of rehab. But the fact remains that, probably in a large part to the amazing skill of the neurosurgeons and their team who did an emergency craniotomy on me, I had no perceptible brain damage. Every doctor who saw me in the followups would say how surprised they were after reading my clinical history of the event.
Part 3: GREAT CONSTITUTIVE LUCK
Some of my first memories of when I was in hospital (at first I had no idea why I was there, it felt like a no-context dream state) was that, when asked what I wanted for my meals, I would intentionally ask for fish because I was aware that omega-3 fatty acids are good "brain food"—and apparently I was brain injured? In other words, even not knowing why I was there, my mind was already focusing on improving my chances.
More important than this was my long-term well-being in the days, weeks, and months after the event. I have left out an important detail so that it didn't distract from the point I was making, but it was not only me who was hit by the car: it was me and one of my friends whom I had not seen in years, and she died on the spot.
My partner intentionally didn't tell me this detail until after I was released from hospital and we were spending a night at a hotel. She wanted to tell me only when she was sure I could fully understand what had happened (for which I am grateful), and it made me terribly sad to head about it. Now, what made the initial circumstantial luck even worse, was this: it was I who suggested travelling to that specific city to meet up. And guess why me and my friend were on that pavement at that specific moment? We were walking to pick up the rental car in the rental place at which I had chosen to make the reservation.
As you can imagine, all these things are a recipe for disaster regarding traumatic memories and needing years of therapy. I had suffered an unexplainable severe accident which left me unable to work and doing rehab for months ("so unfair! Why did this happen to me?"), my friend whom I had not seen in years —and mother of two young sons— had died in the same event ("why did I survive and not her?"), and I had made two of the arbitrary choices that led us both to be in the wrong place at the wrong time ("I am ultimately responsible for what happened!").
And yet, thanks to having internalised ideas of stoic philosophy —and to some extent, thanks to my personality— I never believed any of the italicised thoughts in parentheses above. My partner and her mother, as well as a friend of ours, all initially insisted that I should look for psychotherapy to deal with the situation —not in response to any observation of my behaviour or feelings, mind you, but just because it is "normal" to need therapy after going through a traumatic event. But I didn't need therapy, I was fine. I was able to completely accept my radically new circumstances that I had to deal with, as well as having no feelings of guilt over what was simply a series of fucked up coincidences. In the words of Epictetus, "some things are in our control and others not". How I ended up in that situation was not in my control.
This is why I hate mixing vehicle and pedestrian traffic and why I don't feel safe on the sidewalk. I think it's lunacy to have vehicles driving over foot paths in front of grocery stores. The vehicles have no reason to be there but the establishment directs vehicle traffic right through the main chokepoint in front of the entry doors. I have witnessed workers and shoppers getting assaulted by vehicles numerous times at my local Kroger. Still waiting for the lightbulb to come on.
The crazy thing is, and forgive me if you've heard this before, this insane situation is the result of a deliberate domestic propaganda campaign:
"The Real Reason Jaywalking Is A Crime" (Adam Ruins Everything) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxopfjXkArM
"Street Rivals: Jaywalking and the Invention of the Motor Age Street", Peter D. Norton https://www.jstor.org/stable/40061474
That's not what they mean. They're saying, inside of a parking lot, cars can get into and out of the parking spaces solely by driving in the aisles and outer vehicle paths. They don't need to drive directly in front of the storefronts at all. People on foot have to walk directly in front of the storefront because they need to go inside. Making the innermost path in parking lots a pedestrian only path and restricting motor vehicles to the outer parts of a parking lot would be a much easier win than legalizing jaywalking and trying to get rid of crosswalks to make actual streets pedestrian centric like they were a hundred years ago.