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Discussion » Questions » Life and Society » Damon Runyon wrote, "All of life is six-to-five against."
Benedict Arnold

Damon Runyon wrote, "All of life is six-to-five against."

Was he right? Are the odds loaded against us? How can we turn that from a negative to a positive?
( Thanks, Randy D. :D )

Posted - February 17, 2017
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Responses


  • Ok... Not fair... I was just about to say... You said he wrote it so he must be write .... But now you've corrected it it makes no sense anymore... Sheesh!
      February 17, 2017 6:21 PM MST
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  • Randy was kind enough to contact me and point out what I'd done. My fingers suffer from Alzheimer's. 
      February 17, 2017 6:27 PM MST
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  • I'm just a lousy typist lol ... But it was too good an opportunity to miss :)
      February 17, 2017 6:30 PM MST
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  • “Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway” .... Sydney J. Harris
      February 17, 2017 6:36 PM MST
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  • I've tried to treat it as a joke but sometimes the joke's on me. :(
      February 17, 2017 6:37 PM MST
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  • Ya gotta let 'em win once in a while, or they won't play! :)
      February 17, 2017 6:41 PM MST
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  • Dear Didge,

    Yes Damon Runyon was absolutely correct, imo...maybe he was even being a bit generous!
    However we are charged with saying *yes* to life anyway, to find the beauty in a broken world (in the words of Nancy Berns).
     
    But I don't know exactly how to make that turn, I think it has something to do with looking at life deeply, and somehow your heart gets strong enough to hold the tension of the opposites. This post was edited by Benedict Arnold at February 18, 2017 3:15 AM MST
      February 18, 2017 1:25 AM MST
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  • That "tension of the opposites" sounds very much like C.S.Lewis's contemplation and enjoyment. I'll try to recall it and let you know what he meant but it's almost 60 years since I read it and the memory is a bit hazy. It was about contemplating something, dissecting it, analysing it, looking at it's tiny parts, compared to enjoying it, which was simply indulging in the pleasure (or the despair) of a situation. 

    One of the illustrations he gave was "pain". His contention was that if you have pain, while you're analysing it and the way it's impacting on your body, you can't actually feel it. (His idea, not mine, though I understand where he's going.) But if you "enjoy" the pain (that is, give in to it and let it take over) you will suffer. 

    I think I mentioned Josh Waitzkin to you previously. He won a couple of world championships in martial arts and did it by teaching his mind to disassociate itself from pain. Interesting man. When he stopped competing he had to learn to feel it again.
      February 18, 2017 3:15 AM MST
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