On being Lucky (was On lying and cheating)

[lupinlore]

No: HPFGUIDX 165953

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Ceridwen" <ceridwennight at ...> 
wrote:
>

> 
> Luck runs out.  There are warnings in some religions about taking the 
> hero's path to glory.  It's a viable path; it's a short but amazing 
> journey.  But you can't seem to have it both ways.  The hero fights, 
> the hero wins, women adore him, men wish they could be him (turn it 
> around for a heroine, I'm too lazy to him/her this!).  Meteoric - 
> streaking across the heavens for a split second, then dying in a 
> burst of flame.  The smiling god is no longer smiling.  The hero is 
> taken to Valhalla.
> 
> So, I'm not so sure the favor of the gods is a good thing in life 
> overall.  

Well, that depends on what you mean by a good life.  And we are deep in 
the midst of religion, psychology, and yes, superstition here, so any 
given person almost certainly has contradictory impulses on this topic, 
and the views of any given culture are so layered and paradoxical as to 
be appreciated best only in things like dreams and poems.

What you say is very true.  However, there are also plenty of instances 
in religion and history and literature and culture and, well, life, 
where the opposite is also quite true.  That is, where the brief, 
flaming life that might serve an important, even if a minor, role in 
great events and ends in a blood body on a shield is seen as much 
preferable to an ordinary, long, peaceful existance ending with a 
coronary in one's sleep.  Many see a brief life in the light, like that 
of James, as preferable and more admirable than a long life in shadows, 
like that of Severus.  To press it even further, many deep in their 
hearts see a tragic but noble and powerful journey in the light, like 
that of James, as preferable to a long, honorable, and relatively 
peaceful life like that of Arthur Weasley. There is a reason that 
Achilles chose to go to Troy and embrace death when he had been 
promised a long and happy life if he stayed behind.

So we are dealing here with contradictory tendencies so deeply rooted 
in the human soul that they can never be untangled.  It is true that 
the ancient Chinese had as a curse "I hope you live in interesting 
times."  It is also true that the worst curses that a Spartan could 
fling were "May you live forever" and "May you always know peace."


Lupinlore, who thinks that the contradictions, whatever they may be in 
the end, with regard to these matters in the Potter saga will be no 
better and no worse than what you can read in the newspaper most 
mornings