"On paper", the New York Yankees should win the World Series every single year. "On paper", the undefeated New England Patriots should have steamrolled the New York Giants in Super Bowl XLIV. "On paper", my Dallas Mavericks, having won at least 50 games each and every season in the last decade, should have won at least ONE championship. (A pain I am way too familiar with.)
What exactly does that mean? An outcome of a given situation is predictable based on the logical assessment of “paper”, a symbolic representation of hard facts, statistics, and data.
Of course, we all know you can’t rely only on paper. There are intangibles involved with EVERYTHING. That’s why each of the three above assertions turns out to be false. I often quote ESPN personality Chris Berman: “THAT'S why they play the game.”
It’s difficult to describe what these “intangibles” are. Randomness. Chance. A “human” element (as in, “humans aren’t perfect”).
Unfortunately for left-brained creatures like me who give enormous weight to fact, reason, and rationality, life in general resembles sports in this respect. Just when you have something completely figured out, to the point where you’re absolutely CERTAIN of the outcome of a given situation, life throws you a curveball. On paper, THIS should happen. But in reality, THAT happens instead.
Example 1: If you saw the season six finale of "House" last week (spoiler alert!), you saw the usually invincible diagnostician do everything right to save the life of a woman whose leg had been crushed when a building collapsed. Yet, as the woman, her husband, and Dr. House hurry in an ambulance to the hospital, her pulse vanishes, and she dies. This turns out to be a culmination of emotion and frustration for Dr. House, much of which involves the remainder of the plot -- I won't get into that. The important part is that he "did everything right", and she still died. As a writer pointed out in an interview: "If you do the right thing in the world, good should come out of it. House is trying to learn that lesson, and it hadn’t worked out so well for him. And here, he does everything right, and she dies anyway." The woman should have lived. But she didn't.Example 2: Two people meet and are in the midst of establishing a relationship. They share like interests, values, intellect, and personalities: everything that should result in a healthy relationship...on paper. And yet, time passes, and it doesn’t pan out, due to some intangible quality that’s missing on one side or the other. There's no explanation. What makes it so frustrating is not so much that you can't "fix" it, but you can't even begin to explain why it didn't work.
Example 3: On our last chase day during my storm chasing expedition, we patiently waited in western Oklahoma for a tornadic storm to develop. (Almost) every parameter was screaming that a developing storm was on its way to producing a tornado. And then, on the precipice of exploding into a monster, it fell apart in less than a half-hour. There was no reason for this to happen...or at least no reason that we simpleton meteorologists could comprehend.
It sure is frustrating: If X and Y are true when I encounter this situation, then I can expect that Z will most certainly happen. Sometimes, it feels like an invasion of our personal sense of control: if I have control over X and Y in order to make Z happen, and then Z didn't happen, did I really have control over X and Y to begin with?
Then, I realized that this principle hints at one of my most tightly held philosophies. There seem to be two competing forces in life. Logic and reason have important roles, and most of the time -- probably nearly all of the time, in fact -- they will lead you in the right direction and correctly “predict” what will happen. But logic and reason simply cannot explain everything, due to these “intangibles” that lead to unpredictable conclusions. There’s something else out there, something beyond our comprehension, that directly contradicts logic and reason. Or maybe it doesn't contradict logic and reason, but it's so far over our head we just can't understand it. Whatever it is, it sure makes life difficult for hopelessly left-brained people like me.
I’m not sure if any of that makes any sense. Maybe I should just leave philosophy behind and stick to storm chasing.
4 comments:
Remarkably written.
-Gilmer High School English Department Chair
Interesting post. Is logic at fault, or is it just insufficient information? Just because X and Y appear to cause Z does not mean that X and Y are the only ingredients.
Good point. Maybe the fact that we aren't aware of the whole story is the truth behind the "this is beyond my control" smokescreen. At any rate, it doesn't make these experiences any less discouraging when they don't work out the way you want.
Also, on the flipside, inexplicably GOOD things can happen, too. It doesn't have to be negative. But we probably remember those situations less often.
The problem with X and Y yielding Z is that the more complex the interaction, the more it becomes X and Y yields Z 96% of the time. I think the best strategy in life is to realize what you want and how likely it is to happen, and put yourself in the best position to make it happen - bump that percentage up as high as you know how and then wait and see. Sometimes the universe will close the gap for you and sometimes not, but this is why we have backup plans.
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