feeling lucky?

match point it is a great film. loved it; go see it! i won't give anything away, other than to say that afterward i found myself enraptured with one of the main themes--luck.

what is it really? does it exist; do i have it; does anyone? can it truly influence the outcome of an event? what i find most fascinating about luck--assuming for a moment that it does exist--is that you can never really know if it's with you, or if you had it, until after the fact. it's typical to think, "i got lucky," but how many times has someone said, "i'm going to win because i'm lucky."

it is said that one can be lucky in love, lucky in life, lucky in games of chance. always lucky, or randomly lucky. have bad luck, or be bad luck. there are charms and rituals to increase luck, and superstitions that do the opposite. perhaps even discussing luck could be considered bad luck? we commonly wish each other good luck, but say it to an actor, and it's bad. how many successes or failures do we confidently credit to the presence, or lack, of luck?

i hesitate to delve into a deeper analysis of any of this--perhaps as a result of my own superstitions--with the exception of one major revelation. i realized that i have long considered good fortune and good luck to be synonymous phenomena, often using them interchangeably, but the more i contemplate both, the more i recognize their differences. although one can credit good fortune to good luck, it is not necessary to be lucky to be fortunate.

i believe luck is a subjective phenomenon that aids in surmounting a set of odds with uncharacteristic or inexplicable ease, while i define fortune as simply a preferable circumstance, regardless of how it is achieved. of the two, i would much rather be considered fortunate (but i'll take all the luck i can get!)