Strive To Be Lucky – In memory of the great and eloquent Dr Walker who died on Monday aged 95.
Dr Stuart Walker
Luck, wrote longtime columnist Dr Stuart Walker (1923 – 2018), is fundamental, but a manageable element of every race.
When Paul Elvström raced with Aage Birch for the Dragon Gold Cup at Marstrand, Sweden, in 1958, he decided that Sergio Sorrentino, of Italy, was the fastest and that they were the next fastest.
The Cup would be won by whoever won the final race. On the final beat of that race, they alternately crossed each other. “By pure luck,” according to Elvström, Sorrentino crossed the finish line ahead.
“When things go like that, and it is luck who would win, then we know that and we don’t have to be disappointed,”. Elvström’s confidence, his trust in himself, his remembrance of all the times he had won, assured him that he should have won, that only luck could enable a competitor to beat him!
The attribution of an outcome to luck is a means of expressing an unwillingness, on the one hand, to assume responsibility for the success or on the other hand to take the blame for a mistake. But it is also a means of retaining power.
It’s not that I lost control and that you controlled me; it’s just that this time luck [a higher power, totally unrelated to me or you] usurped my usual control.
Strive To Be Lucky
We give lip service to the fun of participating in a story filled with surprises. Of accepting the role of luck in the outcome. Our actual purpose—disguised, deep down, hidden from view—is to control the entire game. To beat the hell out of our opponents. (Just don’t let anybody know.)
We do not actually believe in luck, but we know that it’s better to have luck on our side.
The confident feel lucky; they presume that things will go their way. And expecting the best, they assume that whatever has happened has happened for the best.
They rig the past to make themselves look good. After a mistake or failure, they proceed to get on with the race and the series without undue condemnation. Free of preoccupation with irrelevant matters, they are alert to what does matter.
Consider the luck involved in winning of the Olympic gold medal in the Dragon Class at Kiel, Germany, in 1972.
After the racing was over, John Cuneo, wishing to show his appreciation, invited the team meteorologist to come aboard. He wanted him to see how he had used the plastic overlays that the met man had provided.
But the met man was horrified to find that Cuneo had won the gold medal by overlaying his daily wind predictions on a deck-mounted chart, upside down!
