Nothing bad ever happens to me.
The only problem with your hypothesis is that you are externalizing. It is not the goodness in your life that returns to equilibrium, it is your attitude to your life. This is demontrably true of most people in most circumstances. It actually takes something like torture, warfare, or divorce to move people from their equilibrium point.
I have the same feelings! And they are how I reconcile my reasonable self with the possiblity of religious faith.
I have vague feelings that everyone has both good and bad things happen to them, and in some theoretical world these things would even out. But in our world, some people have more good happen to them than bad, and vice versa.
Well, before another shoe drops, I'd just like to say: PWNED!
I think these kind of semi-beliefs can be helpful. It sounds (and please correct me if I'm wrong) like you know that you don't really know that your karmic piggy bank is the case, so you don't really believe in it, but it also sounds like thinking of things in this way is handy for you.
When I need to chill out about something, e.g., a presentation, I remind myself that the worst thing that could happen in a situation is that someone dies. In most situations, that is; a horrible, tortuous death is worse than a peaceful death. Anyway, I find it useful to remind myself that it's exceedingly unlikely that my presentation is going to be so bad that someone dies as a result of it. Realistic? No, but it puts things in perspective for me and helps me chill out and do what I want to do.
I think of my optimism kind of like this. On a rational level I know there's no reason to think things will necessarily get better, and they often don't, but holding on to the belief that they will gives me the strength to keep going.
4 -- should we start a John McCain death watch?
Also, thanks Becks for getting lost on your way to the meetup -- it had repercussions that I am happy about.
But then, wouldn't you be like Jerry, "even Steven"?
(Yeah, yeah, bring on the haters.)
Becks is actually a nodal point of karma -- whenever she gets lost on the way to a meet-up, someone has a three-way in the bathroom of the designated restaurant.
11: So basically we are living in "Amélie Deux: Le Fabuleux Destin de Becks".
I'm glad slol mentioned Seinfeld so I didn't have to.
9 -- I was talking about the repercussions that Becks mentioned in the post, i.e. victory for the Democratic party.
14 - Oh. I was hoping for something juicier. But Democrats are good, too.
15: Democrats are juicy as long as you don't overcook them.
Unfortunately, they've been stewing for 12 years.
Did someone say magical realism?
I was pantless in the city of New York... once upon a time. No, that won't do, there's no getting away from the date: I was pantless in a midtown bar on November 7, 2006. And the time? The time matters, too. Well then: at night. No, it's important to be more... at 8pm, as a matter of fact. Palms grasped levers as if in handshakes as I removed my pants. Oh, spell it out, spell it out: at the precise moment of the Democrat takeover of Congress, my pants tumbled forth into the world.
There were gasps.
18 -- Nice. I'm recognizing it but not sure from where. Is it Calvino?
Cala has a nose upon which one could build a center-left bicameral majority.
The nose and knees, knees and nose, and pants, however, belong to Drymala, not me!
The heads, shoulders, knees and toes are mine. All mine.
What about the eyes and ears and mouth and nose?
If you take off the "made in China" sticker from 18, you'll see underneath where it used to be a sticker saying "hecho en Mexico".
It wasn't made in China. It was shamelessly ripped off.
26: If we use it take a picture of everyone from Unfogged, will we get one of John Emerson, laughing, surrounded by singing puppies? Or of ogged in FL's manly arms? Or of you carving WOULD HAVE HAD WOULD HAVE HAD WOULD HAVE HAD over and over into the last unmarked corner of a basement wall?