This is a rambling after reading Freakonomics. Yes I just finished that book now.

“The two biggest lotteries in life are the country you were born in and the parents you were born to.”

A quote from somebody that I most definitely butchered

Our lives, like it or not, are not totally in our control. What shapes us today, were decided years, decades, or even centuries ago by the unintended action of those who before us. And this also happens for what shapes us tomorrow.

Power is what all humans desire. Maybe you (and me) does not desire to be in power of a nation, but to have power is still in our desire. For me, the definition of power is the capability to bend others to our will. Not just other humans, but all other things in this world. It’s carpentry to bend wood to furniture. It’s code to bend data to something useful. It’s our hands to bend the direction of the car. It’s ad to bend our wills to buy stuff. To alter the course of others is power.

So if a lot of our parts of our life has been decided, it’s a logical consequence that we do not have power over it.

And decided does not mean predictable. What seems good in the past may be trash tomorrow.

This conundrum is what being human is: to keep living and keep pushing through, knowing whatever we do, we are not in control. That we are partial gods, trying to wrestle our own lives under control and be happy when we know it’s impossible.