It’s Friday the thirteenth of February, and if you grew up anything like I did you were ingrained with the paranormal affluence of this particular date on the calendar in effecting the universe with a particular strain of misfortune and unluckiness.
I’ve outgrown such superstition, but I can’t help but think about this idea of “luck” now and then, especially so on those random Fridays that happen to evoke a bit of triskaidekaphobia in the lingering echos of my childhood.
I’ve been told so many times in my life that skills I’ve cultivated, talents I’ve practiced or knowledge I’ve acquired is due to some kind of lucky streak in my life.
And maybe there was some luck.
Because, oh sure, I’ll be the first to acknowledge that the privilege of my life, living in a western democracy in the twenty-first century as a European-descended man has played a huge role in the type and frequency of opportunities dangled out in front of me. But any numbskull no matter their privilege—and I’ve known a few—can fumble those opportunities and wind up in a very different creative space, or even completely outside of one.
Luck played a part, sure, but beyond luck some of that is not only what you make of the cards your have been dealt, the dice you rolled, or the coin you flipped… but what you put back into the system.
It’s not luck to work hard towards a goal. It’s not luck to dream big. It’s not luck to share knowledge with others. It’s not luck to build community. It’s not luck to cultivate and to elevate voices. And its not luck to embrace something bigger than yourself and beyond the creative product. It’s more than luck.
And we should embrace more of that idea and make more of that kind of luck for everyone.