DD Corollary : “Many things get noticed only when they go wrong”
I remember the two times that I have missed the train connection because the onward train was late. The excruciating discomfort that went hand in hand with these experiences has made it impossible for me to forget. Both times I remember thinking, stranded on some railway platform – “if anything can go wrong it will”. Also, it is one of the building blocks of my working in a (rather exaggerated) buffer if there was anything very important at the other end of a train journey.
As a cerebral office conversation tried to track the current crisis to its roots, someone quoted the same Mr. Murphy in lieu of giving his own 2-bit take on what exactly the first step of this current calamitous financial turmoil really was. He then went on to point out that of the many opportunities for mis-representation, fraud, financial over-reach, etc. – the current crisis might have been started just because a couple of largely unlikely events happened together or in close succession – and then snowballed into its current avatar. It could go wrong and it did.
I, for one, am always surprised when I cover twenty kilometers in a city like Bangalore in an hour, or when I successfully back out my car in one of the city’s railway station parking lots, or when angry motorists cause traffic mayhem for no more than ten minutes, and every time a nurse or an intern manages a rather smooth IV setup at a blood donation camp.
It is only when one of the above gets really screwed up and you are late for a date, or wedged-in a parking slot between cows, bikes, etc., or when the traffic snarl escalates into a four-hour jam on Hosur road, or when you return from blood donation with your hand in a sling that you really notice the existence of these risks in our respective daily hum-drums - perhaps, the very existence of the hum-drum.
It is almost like it is nature’s way of forewarning the human brain given that it is inherently weak in negotiating the risk of relatively rare events that can introduce variance in outcomes. And as I say that, it strikes Nassim Taleb and Murphy could well be cousins!!! So, without things going wrong once in a while – either first hand, or heard second-hand – us humans will blissfully walk over a cliff, burning coal or nails - assuming it is just another step. Things going wrong, once in a while, is good for us – in the long run. It might have a key role to play in the very existence of the 'long run'.
Murphy’s Law is more like a free lesson natures gives us, so that we can survive for longer than we would otherwise - disguised as it is as a funny, smart lament.
Maybe, batsmen all over the world would guard their wickets a little less zealously if not for Bradman’s last test innings. We appreciate his batting average that little bit better due his last innings duck. We notice and appreciate getting close to 100 runs every time you bat – that it was achieved amidst despite the enormous frailty of a batsman’s wicket. Even if the batsman is Sir Donald.
It is almost like it is nature’s way of forewarning the human brain given that it is inherently weak in negotiating the risk of relatively rare events that can introduce variance in outcomes. And as I say that, it strikes Nassim Taleb and Murphy could well be cousins!!! So, without things going wrong once in a while – either first hand, or heard second-hand – us humans will blissfully walk over a cliff, burning coal or nails - assuming it is just another step. Things going wrong, once in a while, is good for us – in the long run. It might have a key role to play in the very existence of the 'long run'.
Murphy’s Law is more like a free lesson natures gives us, so that we can survive for longer than we would otherwise - disguised as it is as a funny, smart lament.
Maybe, batsmen all over the world would guard their wickets a little less zealously if not for Bradman’s last test innings. We appreciate his batting average that little bit better due his last innings duck. We notice and appreciate getting close to 100 runs every time you bat – that it was achieved amidst despite the enormous frailty of a batsman’s wicket. Even if the batsman is Sir Donald.
The corollary, in my humble opinion, pays more attention to this survival lesson angle of Mr. Murphy’s succinct Law.
Law : “If anything can go wrong it will”
DD Corollary : “Many things get noticed only when they go wrong”
Law : “If anything can go wrong it will”
DD Corollary : “Many things get noticed only when they go wrong”
