The Triple Crown

Secretariat (photo: Dell Hancock)

Have you ever gone for a trifecta like the Triple Crown ie The Kentucky Derby, The Preakness and Belmont, as far as aspiration is concerned? You’ve come up with the cockamamie idea that you increase your chances with three impossibilities rather than one—as if the roulette wheel were likely to stop right on all your numbers. Faites les jeux! In fact the probability swings against you precisely because of the magical thinking that goes into the notion of that great come and get it day. What usually, in fact, transpires when everything looks like it’s going your way? Answer: you find yourself at the event horizon of a black hole. One disappointment is bad enough but failing to get the job, the romantic partner and the sunny weather to match is likely to succeed in only one thing—taking the wind out of your sails. When it rains it pours may apply to rain but not good fortune. Go back in the itinerary of your life. You’ll probably find that nice things happen when you least expect them and sometimes without the adrenaline rush that only impossibilities can produce. 

read "Limbo" by Francis Levy, The Evergreen Review

and listen to "Stubborn Kind of Fellow" by Marvin Gaye