Confessions of a part-time girl

How many philosophers does it take to change a light bulb?
9:17 a.m. -- 2009-11-25

Here�s a philosophical question that has attracted my attention, at times...

Does life kick you, when you�re down?

It certainly seems to. But does trouble really come in threes? Does misery love company? Do you make your own luck? Is feeling cursed ultimately a self-fulfilling doom? Perhaps so.

Laugh, and the world laughs with you: frown and the only people who want to talk to you are Jehovah�s Witnesses.

Financially speaking, life is most definitely set up to kick you when you�re down. For example, when you run out of money, that�s when you encounter interest rates in double figures... plus those oh-so-helpful letters from the bank, for which they charge you maybe �25 a time, for the �service� of letting you know that you haven�t any money.

When you�re in the black, you laugh off the occasional mishap. If your car decides to shed its exhaust pipe or burst a tyre, you simply pay fifty to a hundred pounds (or more, if you drive something fancy) and you�re on your way again. When you�ve had a run of bad luck, however, these small mishaps can really seem like a disaster. If good fortune puts �the icing on the cake�, being unfortunate at an unfortunate time does the opposite. Do we even have a phrase for that? Not that I�m aware of. So I�ll invent one:

Stepping in a dog turd � when you have a hole in your shoe.

Or that thing the Brits most like to talk about: the weather. We seldom notice the wind and rain, until the night when we have to go out in it. Equally, nobody remembers that time when Microsoft Windows crashed thirty seconds after they saved their work. It�s always the time when you hadn�t saved for three quarters of an hour... and of course, it had been a very creative three quarters of an hour, at that.

When you�re working late, and you�re tired, that�s when you belatedly spot the mistake that requires two hours� extra effort to make good. (I�ve pulled a few all-nighters on that basis...) When you�re running late, you resent every red light. And it�s not until you have a badly broken fingernail that you notice how often you snag it.

Or being unlucky in love. If it makes you think, �why bother?� then you�re always going to be the bridesmaid, and never the blushing bride. Which brings us back to �laugh, and the world laughs with you...� Because happy is sexy. Being happy is good for just about every organ of the human body. (With the possible exception of the liver, if you party too hard.) When we�re upset, we shut ourselves away from the people who love us and most want to help us.

Aren�t we strange creatures, that whatever trend we commence, it tends to reinforce itself? Fortunately, my current trend is upward. I�m over-paid, over-promoted and I�m working a kind of confidence trick on the universe, whereby people see this frenzy of disorganised activity and think I must be good at what I do, and worthy of still more opportunities. Two years ago, with too few clients for my services, I tried to get some temporary office work. No agency would have me; not even to do a bit of filing and photocopying at minimum wage.

From all this, only the following can be concluded: that it�s bad luck to be unlucky. (And if you are, hard luck!)

Next time the path of your life is �strewn with cowpats from the devil's own Satanic herd� (to quote Edmund Blackadder), try to remember that you probably always faced just as many cowpats. It�s just that some days you have a good pair of wellies on, and some days you don�t.

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Note to readers overseas: Wellies = Wellington Boots. Aka Gumboots, rubber-boots, topboots or rainboots. Named after early adopter Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (he who kicked Napoleon's arse, although it is not clear what he had on his feet at the time).

And... "How many philosophers does it take to change a light bulb?" My favourite answer is that when we examine the concept of "lightbulb" one requirement is that it should light up. Hence, if it does not light up, it is not a lightbulb. And if it is not a lightbulb, there is no reason to change it.

Philosophy: bringing entirely the wrong sort of enlightenment... since 600BC.

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