How much of your life do you feel is your doing? Is your life your creation? How about who you are? Can you say with pure autonomy that you know yourself, or are living authentically as ‘you’?
Now, what if you’d been born in a different time, place, and culture. Wouldn’t that ‘you’ be a different ‘you’?
This page is an homage to the power of luck and circumstance over our lives. Our hope is that it will tickle you; tickle your curiosity and give you a sense of ease in the realm of the uncontrollable.
The Luck Sliders
Press the button or move the slider!
Press the button or move the slider!
The Bad Luck Die
There’s a piece in every day and moment that is like rolling a die.
The purpose of this 20-sided die is to symbolize the ease with which bad things can happen to us, encouraging a sense of detachment.
You’re not cursed. Bad things happen to good people. We all die, often painfully.
So much on this site is about the choice that we do have in our lives. More than we give ourselves credit, we have power over the stories that make up our lives.
But that power is within the realm of perspective. We champion the choice that we have in our own lived experience. And meanwhile, there is an objective world around full of events and boundaries that aren’t up to us.
We don’t choose when or where we’re born. We don’t choose the race, sex, or economic class we’re born into.
We can hardly even take full credit for our successes.
Did you work really hard to start that business? Did you attend every class to get your degree, through thick and thin? Yes. And yet, did you create the government that gave your business license? The school that granted your degree?
And what if something bad had happened during school? What if you fell ill beyond your ability to overcome? It wouldn’t have been your choice.
At any time, irreparable damage could be caused to your person. You could lose a family member, get in a car accident, or be diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer.
Okay, okay…this isn’t for the purpose of being morose. The point here is that our lives are fragile, and we are ultimately subject to countless forces outside of our control.
The listed related pages will help you with tools to reign in every modicum of control you do have, like how you relate to the circumstances that find you.
Some Fun Links
Shit Happens
A hilarious card game with over 200 cleverly illustrated cards, players guess where unfortunate situations rank according to their “Misery Index.” If you’re correct, you keep the card
Sweet Copper D20 Die Set
Because we love Dungeons and Dragons (basically collaborative storytelling where outcomes are driven by luck and creativity) we thought we’d share this fancy die set. 🙂
- Premeditatio Malorum – A presentation of the Stoic practice of premeditating on the evils and troubles that might lie ahead.
- The Loser Game – This is a game with a difference: those who win it are great at losing. The Loser Game gently suggests that losing isn’t some freakish anomaly, it’s an inevitable part of being human.
- Asteroid Launcher – Simulate the effects of cosmic bad luck! This simulator shows you how much damage would happen from an an asteroid, depending on its size and where it hits, etc.
