In disasters, the lucky live and the unlucky die

[Originally published on a weblog called “What Is Liberalism?”]

Cathy Seipp tries to remind us that luck plays a large role in our lives:

I’m a big believer in sensible living — paying your bills on time, keeping your car in good repair and credit cards under the limit, staying in shape, eating fruits and vegetables, keeping flashlights and gallons of extra water on hand, and so on. Because of course all this increases your odds of avoiding unfortunate events. But maybe now and then we might remember that eventually none of us gets out of here alive, and sometimes, despite everything, your luck runs out, even though it seems that it really shouldn’t have. To deny that, it seems to me, displays a foolish lack of humility.

I recall being in a restaurant in late September of 2001 and hearing a fellow at the next table say “If it was me, I would have taken them out. I know martial arts. No dude with a box cutter would keep me from getting to the cockpit.” I remember feeling anger about his arrogance, his certainty that he could have handled the situation better than those on the hijacked plane did. But I also recognize that these are the lies we tell ourselves to keep our anxiety in check. Without some lies such as these, me all might go mad with the anxiety that life’s dangers inspire. Any of us can die any day, yet we need to believe that for some reason we are not going to die today.

Seipp then quotes two disaster survivors. The first believes she survived because she made wise decisions. The other blames fate:

Yossi Ghinsberg, who has a philosophy degree and is a veteran of the Israeli military, struck me as far more intelligent than Kiley (who I think works as a yoga teacher these days) in the first place. So I suppose it’s natural his attitude seemed wiser: “My notions are completely different and nothing to do with choices,” he said. “The way I see it, there’s a mystery to life, and there’s a mystery to death. The strongest in our group never came back. They chose the safest way out of the jungle. Me and my friend, we took a raft onto whitewater that we didn’t know. We did something so crazy, so irresponsible by choosing the river, though both of us are alive. So I don’t think anybody can really explain why one lives and one dies.”