An accident is a 'black swan,' a random event that could not be anticipated. It's an unexpected, rare occurrence with massive after-effects. According to 'The Black Swan: The impact of the highly improbable,' these events lie outside 'the tunnel of possibilities.' They are entirely unpredictable, random and unlikely to ever happen. Yet they do.
According to Psychologies Magazine, (November) the concept of randomness makes people uncomfortable. Human brains are designed to create connections and to utilize past experiences. When something out of the ordinary happens humans strive to explain it, quantify it, analyse it. We look for certainty in an uncertain world: predicting the weather; forecasting economics and planning ahead. We forget that we are not in control and that every day we live we are drifting this way and that, under the influence of larger factors at work. Take the Butterfly Effect, for example, a theory beautifully explored in Micheal Cricthron's Jurassic Park and the 2004 Aston Kutcher film of the same title.
The Butterfly Effect, another term for Chaos Theory states that the sensitive dependence on initial conditions means a tiny change in circumstances or influences can result in a large difference to a later state. A theoretical example of this is the musing that a hurricane's formation could result from whether or not a distant butterfly had flapped its
wings several weeks before.An accident is too often caused by a series of unfortunate events, an inexplicable combination of factors that when written on paper could be the premise of a terrible Soap Opera episode. Life is often stranger than fiction. According to philosophers, the key to the Black Swan is being able to take from this sudden, highly impactful occurrence. How can we take from the negative and turn it into a positive outcome?
Many success stories in history are due to an individual being able to view a seemingly negative event as an opportunity and turn it into something else. People assume it is hard work or persistence that turns people into 'greats' but it is often resilience in the face of adversity as well as luck. These people have the ability to turn an highly improbable and unpredictable occurrence to their advantage.
Crucially, it's these 'Black Swans' that have the biggest impact on history. The biggest changes often happen in times of uncertainty and instability when increasing numbers of unusual opportunities open. Examples include companies like Facebook and Apple who have seized the market through their ability to optimize today's culture. Starbucks came along when Howard Schultz attended a homeware conference in Milan and was struck by the city's coffee bar culture. Katie Piper had a life-changing experience and decided to open a charity in order to support others, changing the course of her life. Pasteur discovered penicillin when he forgot to wash up some petri dishes and because he had a naturally curious nature. Many notable inventions in history have occurred because something happened by chance and someone took the opportunity to pursue it. In Bill Bryson's novels 'A Short History of Nearly Everything' and 'At Home: A Short History of Private Life,' we are shown time and time again how our history is made up of layers of serendipity, luck and chance. Hard work and persistence do pay off but it seems they only have an impact if the stars are aligned!
So how does this affect you or me? It's important to embrace randomness and to try to not to be affronted when things don't go to plan. It's about seeing your accident or life-changing circumstance as a door to something new and not being afraid to open it. We must stop predicting how life will turn out and instead, try to be prepared for it. I can't predict whether or not my scarring will fade to a level I can accept but I can prepare for life if it doesn't.
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I first discovered the randomness in life when I lost my best friend at college to an RTC. He hitchhiked to his home and the car he was in crashed. I was so annoyed, why him, why now (he was 18). Someone said why not him? No one has the right to a long life or a charmed existence. That was in fact the shocking truth, life is random, he accepted a lift from a random well meaning stranger. You went to a an event which you had unconsciously assessed, rightly so, as low risk. People make pots of money telling us that its all preordained; it feels to me more like a huge game of 3D snakes & ladders!
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