It’s a tough question.
As a feeling, it forms our orientation every day. One
day this way, and the next, that-a-way.
But
the role of pure luck in life and history is a persnickety matter. Storytellers
avoid it, because one can not make sense of lucky coincidences.
Historians,
who are also storytellers when it comes right down to it, also avoid it for the
most part. Their jobs and whole professional discipline would evaporate if luck
is deemed central to events.
Philosophers
and theologians have argued about the place of coincidence. The understanding
of creation hinges on the notion that a thinker/great designer is behind it, or
a chain of gazillion coincidences just had a lucky streak.
Some,
like me, have come to understand that coincidences are few, but they do exist
and do play a part in all journeys. But
how to tell this in stories, and in what proportion to place luck in a
story?
Now,
that is the question.
