Against the Unfortunate Odds

Yesterday while talking with a friend, themes of destiny and luck were threaded into our conversation and it set me back in my thinking. We were talking about the exams we were going to take this week when my friend stated that he would just have to wait and see if the day he takes his exam will be “his day,” referring to if it will be lucky. I feel slightly uncomfortable with the idea of odds in one’s favor, or the belief of luck, and how people will refer to it in conversation so casually. Even though I politely agreed with him, I knew I didn’t completely agree with what he was saying. I was not always like this however, luck when I was younger was a really easy way to find relief in positive and negative experiences. On the day I lost my favorite bracelet, I felt like I was the unluckiest person in the world. The summer where I found a friend’s contact lens in the middle of a hotel pool, I felt incredibly lucky. Today, I find myself feeling so helpless with this belief, and I have been trying to figure out why. 

Three weeks ago I was in an accident that could have been fatal. I was in a car accident with my parents that caused such shock to my body and mind I had to stay at the hospital for a week, and I since then have been spending the rest of this time at home recovering. Although I am grateful to be here today, this incident in my life left me feeling lost and emotionally disoriented. It reminds me of when I get sick, where I don’t feel like myself, but I know that in time I will soon get better and feel “normal” and healthy again so continue pushing forward with my education, career, and aspirations. Unlike getting sick, I have felt extremely unmotivated, and even harshly disappointed with myself for feeling this way. I’ve written in the past that I have always been very proud of my motivation and enthusiasm in regards to my education, it has been the way that I feel I have to prove myself to people. Being a 17 year old in my second year attending community college has given me the opportunity to help me work through what at times I feel is impossible, and do it well. As soon as the first semester started I made school my priority, it was what I thought about in the morning, and stressed me out at night time, but I managed to organize and get everything under control and I held a very steady GPA which I was really pleased with. The end of the semester, ever since the accident, has not been going as well as I wanted, which has been causing me stress and at this point leaving me with very little motivation to get out of bed sometimes. One thing that I have noticed is that amidst the chaos of the accident, or even while I was in the hospital, emotionally I found myself more in control of the odds of my situation, than when I am recovering at home. I think that is because grades are coming in now, and the final projects are inching closer and closer to being due. 

Going back to why I find myself feeling insecure in the phenomenon of “luck”, I was reading an article this morning by Leviticus Rich, where he explains why he doesn’t believe in it. The way Leviticus Rich sees it, “luck is pure probability, nothing else.” That time that I lost my bracelet was because it broke without me noticing as it was a little worn. The day I found that contact lens, was because I was being extremely observant, more than usual, and I caught it before it flowed into the pool drain. Both of these circumstances are based on chain reactions. The article also explains that “luck should only be used as a synonym for “fortunate odds within this instance” and nothing more.” I like thinking about this rather than the idea that luck is a metaphysical, imaginary force that affects our lives. One of my favorite parts of the article was about the perspective of a circumstance, which is what leads us to believe whether something is good or not. Depending on each individual, the experience changes what we perceive to be lucky or unlucky. 

Some may say my parents and I were incredibly lucky to survive the car accident, the neurologist even believed I was given “una segunda oportunidad,” or a second chance in life. In reality, I feel more at peace when I think that despite the unfortunate odds, my family and I are here today, and I hope to use this mindset throughout my life to push past incredibly difficult circumstances.

Kathryn Antle

Resource:

Rich, Leviticus. “Why I Don’t Believe in Luck.” Medium, Medium, 10 Aug. 2019, medium.com/@leviticusrich/why-i-dont-believe-in-luck-234e1bc8bf52.

Note from May 4th//

It has been a little less than a month since I’ve finished my first year attending courses at FRCC. I feel like bringing up my college is important because it has taken up most of my time this year, and last year. It’s interesting to experience time passing because at first, everything felt like it would never end. Then little by little, that 6 paged essay only needed a conclusion paragraph, and then that final project only needed a couple more sources cited, and then I was only three days from finishing all my classes. While I was in quarantine it was a little hard to process that. This year has been very challenging. My classes took up so much of my time, they stressed me out so much, but in the end, I managed. If that doesn’t prove that I can do what I set my mind out to do, I don’t know what does.

Today I spent most of my time at home doing nothing. It has been a while since I’ve had one of those days where you just look up at the ceiling and think, not even about anything in particular, and just feel peaceful. For the past couple of days, I have been busy spending time with friends, going to the beach, and moving into Natalie’s grandma’s old “piso” (apartment in Spanish). This afternoon I went to the cafe “La Mina” which means The Mine in Spanish, where I used to do my conversational English classes, to use some wifi and have a class with Everest, one of my online writing students. Then I left to where I am now, by the ocean because I felt some motivation to write. Originally I was going to write some poetry, but I just wanted to get what I wrote above off my chest. I think it was some sort of acceptance, and now I can move on to thinking about the future. It’s a little cold right now, I have goosebumps and everything and it’s only 8:30. I think that a storm is coming because the waves are kinda big. I am at a part of the town where there is a sort of port walk, not that it looks anything like a boardwalk, just that it’s a cement path, followed by large rocks that you usually see by the edge of a port. I used to go here a lot during quarantine because I could hide between the rocks and write, listen to music, and even suntan. I like the calmness here, only a few people come to sit. I am listening to a song that I like a lot by Rels B, its called “Quedate, te quiero,” and I used to listen to it a lot on the bus or walking to school. It reminds me of losing people I care about. That sounds a little dark figuring that I haven’t lost anyone in the way that they “passed away,” but I have lost relationships this year with people I cared about. It makes me feel sadness is only a small part of missing someone who’s gone. I think that it’s important to be patient with these things. I read a while ago that “it’s okay to miss someone, but not want them to come back.”

Kathryn Antle

atardecer

¿Por qué quedamos atrapados?

2020 growth & goals

It feels like January appeared out of nowhere.

Tenerife Memories

A journal entry from March 2019

Galeon

A poem

Language

“Fiction can be dangerously misleading and distracting” was a quote written by the author of Sapiens, a book about the history of humankind. Yuval Noah Harari explains that the ability to speak about fiction is the most unique feature of Sapiens’ language. 

Fall 2019

What I learned after my first semester of college.

mix @ the moment (December)

In Spain, December weather varies. Sometimes there are sunny days where you forget that it’s winter and almost even walk down to the beach or study for hours in a nearby park to take advantage of the warm sunny rays. Other times, it’s rainy and cold, and you are reminded that sometimes the weather can be a little depressing. The majority of these past few weeks have been dark, cold and rainy so I’ve taken the time to create an easy schedule where I can still feel productive, even when I just want to cuddle up into a ball and do nothing. This is the music I have been listening to right while kicking back and ignoring the stresses of finals and the chilly weather.

A lot of the music I have been listening to has been Spanish, mostly because of the influence of my peers and my determination to become fluent this year.

Some of my favorites artists this month are Recycled J, Micro TDH, Rels B, WOS, Juancho Marques, 31 FAM, and Jesse Baez. I love these singers because I find them all to be very different, and they all have a mixture of Latin and rap styles.

☾Egoismo-Jesse Baez

☾Cumpliendo el Objetivo-Micro TDH

☾Tenamoras-DELLAFUENTE

☾Aunque Digan Que Yo-Recycled J

☾Tiempo-Recycled J

You can check out the entire Spotify playlist here

Mejor si no siento nada