I asked my wife if she thinks herself lucky and she replied she does. After I asked why, she said it was because compared to many other people, she has things pretty good - things can always be worse.

I suspect that on average and in reflection, most people think this about themselves, that in comparison to others, they are pretty lucky. It could be because of where they were born, or the services they have available, the parents they had or the job they hold - but probably very few people consider themselves very unlucky in life, except during the emotional times of when bad things happen.

However, should this be the case, should our sense of well-being and gratitude depend on us seeing others suffer? It makes society quite a warped place when we do this as essentially, it sets up a race to the bottom situation, that means that as long as we are doing better than others, it doesn't matter that things are getting worse for us.

This is part of the problem with letting the governments and media outlets dictate the narrative for what is normal for us, as they will inevitably push the story that is in their favor, not ours. Since they are not concerned with our well-being, they can make a degradation in our living conditions seem okay, by juxtaposing it with images from where things are worse, making us feel lucky that our conditions are not like theirs.

It plays well with the current economic conditions, the fastest rate of wealth transfer from poor to rich that has ever taken place. While the wealth gap is increasing and the number of those on the other side of the divide is reducing, it works to have us compare ourselves to others worse off than us, especially since the speed of degradation at the lower tail is faster than that closer to the zero.

This sets up social dynamics that help the extraction too, as those who are degrading slowly both count themselves lucky for not being at the far end of the negative tail, and also blame those at that tail for their situation. The media can support the divide and conquer approach by driving wedges between groups, starting arguments, polarizing populations against each other so that they spend their time focusing on the seeded differences, rather than the ongoing and continuous degradation of themselves and the communities in which they live.

Are we lucky?

Of course, you can count yourself lucky if you aren't caught at the tail end, but is that something to celebrate or even be grateful for? It is like standing on the bow of the ship, as the stern is rapidly sinking - it is just a matter of time until all are below the waterline.

I guess we are all lucky in some ways, unlucky in others. We are lucky to be born at all, unlucky to be born into a world where profits take priority over people. Perhaps it was always this way, but I assume that once upon a time, small tribes and families would work together against the elements to survive. Now, the fight for survival is against those who control the elements, those who control us to the point that we do not even realize we are fighting at all.

We feel the struggle, the pain, the oppression though, it is just that we think it is the way it has to be, the way it always has been and that we are incapable of changing the course of our experience. of course, this is what the narrative tells us, that we are incapable of making our own decisions, governing ourselves, even deciding what to do with what we think we own. Pretty lucky.

Maybe what keeps us going is the hope that things will improve in time, even if we have no idea how that is going to happen. Who knows, it could all work out okay and everyone will get a life of rainbows and unicorns, but the way it is currently going, I doubt it.

But hey,

Luck it!

Play the game the best we can and try to do what we can, to improve where we can.
Maybe we'll get lucky, rather than lucked over as normal.

Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]