Those Lives in Which Chance Plays No Part

In Lost Illusions Balzac remarks that "there are lives in which chance plays no part"--such that those "despair[ing] of a life become stale and unprofitable in the present" find no relief in "outlook for the future," having as they do "nothing to look for, nothing to expect from chance."

Writing of one particular character that matter of chance comes up again and again, with that specific word "chance" coming up at least three dozen times in the text. Certainly as discussed here again and again chance means the "lucky break," the "big break," that make for high position and glorious careers of the kind that have the conventional conformist idiot most people with any sort of public platform seem to be taking mediocrities are superhumans of Renaissance Man versatility--as people who might prove themselves actual geniuses go through their lives thought idiots and treated as worthless because they were among those in whose lives chance played no part.

As Balzac made clear here, chances are not at all equally distributed--with chance overwhelmingly enjoyed by the privileged, the connected, the kind of people for whom the activity of "networking" actually has meaning, because they are in a position to network with people who have the power to do something for them, and could be induced to use it, because they in turn can do something for them.

For the rest of the world, alas, "chance" is too likely to simply mean "mischance"; mean disaster striking, and their "becoming a statistic."

Considering their lot I find myself thinking of the self-help drivel about "stepping outside your comfort zone," and "being open to new experiences." As things already are most people are pretty uncomfortable--and unprotected from life's shocks and their terrors, rather than failing to be "open to new experience." What they want, for perfectly good reason, is some comfort, and some protection; some security and some control of the kind of which they have too little, a reality to which the outside-their-comfort-zone-stepping, open-to-experience advice-purveying privileged nitwits are profoundly oblivious.