Friday, December 23, 2016

that sparkle of chance


It's almost Christmas time. It should be a week of peace in the world. Instead, it's a week that started with another terrorist tragedy. It's painful to think of all those who went to that market to have a bit of christmas joy, and then find themselves trapped and hurt. 

It's what I thought of when I went to Stuttgart on Tuesday - but then, I didn't want to be trapped in that fear the terrorists want to spread. And so I walked the way I had in mind, the one that leads through the city, through streets full of x-mas decorations and music - and to the Chrismas market at the "Schlossplatz", the centre of the city.

That's also where the art museum is - they have an interesting theme for their current exhibition: “Zufall” – “Chance”. And the museum has lovely city views from the museum floors. The image above is a reflection photo, and the one below is from inside the exhibition:

The theme of chance, it touched me more than I expected. It made me remember the article I read earlier this year that compared different reason-of-death-risks, and the way we react to them. In Germany, the risk to die in a terror attack is lower than the one of flight accidents, which is about 1: 3.360.000. So statistically, we wouldn't need to worry. There are activities with much higher risks: driving a car: 1 : 20.200. And there is smoking: 1 : 260. But all this are just numbers. The art approach, the play with patterns and rules and with chance elements felt closer to the way life presents itself.

There’s more about it online, here: unexpected. And here’s my personal chance zen riddle moment, the 3 panels say: “Chance or art?” – “Chance doesn’t exist” – “You are here due to chance.”


It also made me think of that poem I wrote once about chance, which got published in Soundzine. Well, looking it up, it turns out the poem wasn't about chance, but about it's sister: luck.  

LUCK: 

good or bad fortune in life
caused by accident or chance

           in German: Glück
a word that is close to Lücke – “gap”

which points at the close scale
between good or bad luck

in the case of missing a bus,
or a look
or a realization
by a minute
on an everyday Thursday morning

and all the causes
and consequences
this gap between

your life as it is    //    your life as it almost would have been

/a  gap that you obviously never
will be fully able to grasp/

may encompass


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