Episode 072 - Do Ya, Punk?

Hear The Thesis

The Thursday Thesis  - 02/11/2017

Remember that scene in Dirty Harry where Clint Eastwood’s character – Harry Callahan -  shoots the bank robbers and asks a wounded robber “...you've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?'. Well, do ya, punk?”

It’s a great scene, and it’s a great question, too.

And yeah, I feel lucky – how about you?

I feel lucky because I won the lottery today, again.

I do it every day – and I don’t even buy a ticket.

My odds of winning the jackpot are around 1 in 45 million, but I beat the odds every single day without fail.

Lucky me, right?

Except that I didn’t win the lottery that you are thinking of. I’m mind-reading today, so I know that you are thinking of the lottery that pays out a piffling £20 million or so, aren’t you?

Wow, what would you do with all that money...?

You’d probably take time out to do the things you’ve always wanted to do: move house, go on holiday, fire your boss, spend more time with the kids, maybe even get a divorce!!

It’s tragic, isn’t it that money could give you that  power?

The power to choose to live how you liked, be with whomsoever you chose, to spend your time as you chose to.

The irony is that money does not exist. We live as slaves to a fictional system of exchange and money, a fiction that is sustained only as long as people choose to believe in it. The truth is that money is a myth – and that’s a fact.

Well, maybe the money myth is for another post, because today I’m feeling lucky, having won the lottery once again. I’m such a lucky bastard: every single day of my life I’ve beaten the odds and woken up: every single day has been a triumph of staggering proportions – and all I had to do was open my eyes and start the day.

Every day we are alive is against the odds: an everyday miracle; today is a long shot that came good.

Now this galloping optimism isn’t some kind of manic yammering of a deranged person – it’s just a rational analysis of the facts, as far as we understand them.

Here’s how I look at it: humans have been around for a long time. How long is disputed, with mainstream science proposing 7 million years, whilst there is evidence for us being around a great deal longer than that.

And here I am, today, not dead.

And let me tell you that not being dead is a Good Thing, by the way!

Anyway, I’m alive today, just one day out of the 365.25 days of the year, taken out of the 7 million-plus years of human history.

Do the math: 365 x 7,000,000 = 25,550,000,000

So the chances of me being alive on this unique day in human history is 1 in 25 Billion, with a B.

What a lucky bastard I am, and how lucky are you to have woken up on this day?

Think about it the next time you feel unlucky about some cosmically irrelevant little detail.

Ask yourself “Do I feel lucky?”

Well, do ya, punk?

Click here to see the clip of the scene.

© Neil Cowmeadow 2017

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