Lent 2026: day 15 – the luck you will yourself

Controversial, but mine. If you overlook the chance of misfortune befalling you, it will befall you. But if you consider the possibility of it occurring, you can forestall it. I sincerely believe this. Some might think me naive, yet it's something I've observed since childhood. It's usually the unexpected that creeps up on you. From big things like heart attacks to small things like delayed trains.

In an uncertain world, outcomes are random. A solar flare could knock out all electrical power on earth. A supervolcano could plunge us into a seven-year-long winter. An asteroid strike could lead to a mass-extinction event. A plague could sweep the earth. Nuclear holocaust could be unleashed. To date, we have sidestepped these. But for how long? As long as it aligns with the Purpose for us to do so...

Nudging outcomes, but only if they align. Wishful thinking? Yes? Whyever not? 

The Purpose of the universe is not for you to live a life of luxury and high status. But then neither is it for you to suffer in discomfort. Align your wishes with this, and be mindful of what can go wrong along the way. 

Mindfulness and prayer merge. "May I not slip up on the ice" becomes not just a petition to the Lord but an instruction to self; "be careful out there". Sceptics may argue that effect = not slipping over on the ice is caused by attention's triumph over inattention. But a metaphysical 'guardian angel' effect may also be involved.

If we look at luck through the prism of quantum mechanics, the observer effect and the possibility of willing outcomes at the subatomic level – could we not train ourselves to do this at the macro level? To alter classical-mechanical outcomes with our will? Highly speculative, a matter of belief and personal observation. But if it works out in 51% or more of cases in your life over many decades, well, hey – it works for me. Call it pseudoscience, I have no idea how it works, but it is practical. It's just that you have to cover so many bases. "May the shit not hit the fan." But which shit, and which fan?

When I step out and lock the front door, I make that conscious prayer that I may return safely home, my  tasks achieved, the day fulfilled in its promise. And on returning home, the cats all well, I give thanks. 

Take care. Look after yourself. With mindfulness. Look after our planet, too.

Postscript: I prompted ChatGPT and Google Gemini to produce an illustration for the theme "willing yourself good luck". Both images were predictably full of horseshoes, four-leafed clovers and dice. Not the point.

Lent 2025: day 15
The Ego's journey through life

Lent 2024: Day 15
Aligning Prayer with Cosmic Purpose

Lent 2023, Day 15
Intuition and instinct

Lent 2022: Day 15

Religious belief, practice, inquiry and experience

Lent 2021: Day 15
The Afterlife – Faith and Doubt

Lent 2020: Day 15
Rites and Ritual

Consciously, mindfully, averting misfortune

An early morning insight, between sleep and wakefulness: {{ We can preclude catastrophe; we merely need to consider the catastrophe and discount the possibility of it happening. That conscious act collapses the wave function* }} 

This is the notion of quantum luck. Misfortune often strikes unexpectedly. Rule it out by expecting it, by thinking about it, considering it... and at that moment the wave function collapses. [The many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics postulates a multiverse in which an infinite number of universes co-exist, each sparked by collapsing wave function. So there is a universe in which you leave home consciously considering the possibility of your house being burgled – and you return home to find that it has been burgled. But not in this universe.]

The obverse is quantum luck is indifference to fate, to random misfortune. The obverse to quantum luck is also complacency; the thinking-by-default that if I were lucky yesterday, I'll be lucky today and I'll be lucky tomorrow. No. You will only be lucky today and tomorrow if you are grateful that you were lucky yesterday. You have to consciously feel that gratitude for this to work. Being mindful, aware, grateful.

You live in a world shaped by priors, things that have already been established, over which you have no control. Accident of birth is the most significant prior. But a whole series of unfoldings is constantly unfolding, possibilities that turn into realities. Fate, random events... 

You are studying for an exam. By chance you come across a fascinating article that explains some question that has been bothering you for some time. You set out this thinking in your exam essay – and it lands you a higher score, which gets you into a better university, where you meet the love of your life... Or not. Once the possibility has crystallised into reality, it becomes a prior from which further events unfold. Good and bad. You can't change the past, but you can influence the future. By action, obviously. But also by conscious consideration. Guided by a desire for good, rather than by ego.

The doomsday scenarios that we guard against. A supervolcano eruption. An asteroid strike. A devastating pandemic. A coronal mass ejection of the sun that knocks out all electricity on earth. Somewhere, on our planet, someone is considering each of these possibilities, and is thus guarding us against them. Last week's 8.8-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Kamchatka was the sixth-most powerful ever recorded and yet the death toll was zero. Good preparation (mass evacuations following tsunami warnings? Mitigation through better civil engineering)? Or – as news came over the airwaves of earthquake, could it have been the conscious hopes of millions of people around the world?

Mystical Judaism has the ideal that there are 36 righteous people (the lamed vovniks) who between them sustain the world. Mindfully watching out for all us sinners. Are there just 36 of them? Did God make the world in six days? I feel that yes, there are conscious folk out there watching for us at macro level just as I am consciously aware of averting misfortune at the personal level. 

Religion is a story we tell ourselves. Science is a story we tell ourselves. Which do you believe? Or do we each weave our own narratives to explain reality? Can God be boiled down to a physical formula? Can science explain the soul?

* I asked Google Gemini to explain the collapse of the wave function in quantum mechanics in simple terms: "Imagine you have a spinning coin in the air. Before it lands, it's neither 'heads' nor 'tails'; it's in a fuzzy state of being both at once. This fuzzy state is like the 'wave function' in quantum mechanics. It contains all the possible outcomes, each with a certain probability. The 'collapse of the wave function' is what happens when you catch the coin and look at it. The act of observation forces the coin to 'decide' on a single outcome – it becomes either definitely heads or definitely tails. All the other possibilities vanish instantly. In quantum mechanics, this is a central idea: until we measure or observe a particle, it exists in a superposition of all its possible states. The moment we measure it, its wave function 'collapses', and it settles into just one of those states."

This time last year:
Warsaw's progress to normality

This time four years ago:
Summer winding down

This time eight years ago:
My Mazovian roots

This time nine years ago:
My father revisits his battleground

This time 11 years ago:
Over the hill at Harrow

This time 12 years ago:
Behold and See - the Miracle of Lublin - Pt 1.

This time 14 years ago:
Quiet afternoon in the bazaar

This time 15 years ago:
The politics of the symbol

From automatic action to mindful control

This is a familiar notion in terms of acquiring any new skill. As an example, I'll take learning to drive a car.

You start from the position of unconscious incompetence. You don't even know what it is that you don't know. As it begins to dawn on you just how much you need to understand – movements you must coordinate, mental checklists to master, traffic signs, and the rules of the road you must remember – you move to conscious incompetence. 

Now you are beginning to be aware of how much there is to learn, you start putting the theory into practice. In time, you move towards conscious competence. You're aware of depressing the clutch each time before shifting gear; you're aware of all the actions needed to negotiate a roundabout – brakes, shift down, mirror, indicate; looking left and right. 

Your first driving lessons are stressful. The brain is fatigued; fear overcomes you as you realise that you're in control of a tonne or more of steel, glass and rubber, moving with deadly kinetic potential at thirty metres per second. 

But with time, with practice, the process of driving a car becomes easier and easier. Now you have acquired unconscious competence. You no longer have to think about what you're doing – you just do it. Everything falls into place. You take your test, and you pass it. Sometimes it takes several attempts; no matter – you have become a driver. And you're not unique in this. 

Billions of other human beings have acquired this skill too. It has become automatic. We've all experienced that moment when, lost in your own train of thoughts, you suddenly realise you have covered many miles without having any conscious awareness of the actual road, landmarks passed, especially if it's a well-known route. 

So – my point is this. Is unconscious competence enough? 

It's in this state of mind that most road accidents occur. Bear this in mind – 3,700 people died in road accidents around the world yesterday. Half of them will have been pedestrians or cyclists. Nearly all accidents, fatal or those resulting in injury, will have happened with the participants in a state of unawareness.

Setting off for a walk, or a drive, or a motorbike ride, or a train journey, I utter a small prayer for my safe return, coupled to an expression of conscious gratitude for having got through another day, for my health, for my luck. 

And here's the thing. Is the very act of being aware of the need to consciously look out for myself physical mindfulness – sharpening my observation, my forethought and anticipation, taking care – or is there a metaphysical element involved as well? A guardian angel looking out for me? The same spiritual entity that provides me with intuition, that aligns my flow with that of the Cosmos?

Quidquid agis, prudenter agas, et respice finem. 

Meditation means consciously disassociating the mind from matter. Mindfulness is engaging with the physical realm in a state of high awareness. 

This time last year:
Keep on keeping on

This time two years ago:
Time and Consciousness

This time three years ago:
Altered states - higher planes

This time eight years ago:
Warsaw-Radom line modernisation - Czachówek

This time 14 years ago:
Climbing Mogielica