My time as a professional card game player has made some facts of the universe crystal clear to me.
The one that I’ve often stated the past few years is the extent to which butterfly effects control our lives more than we do (much the same as how a minor decision you make early in the game could ripple through the entire game to effect who wins several turns later). Tyth approached me at a club night at an anime con, some weeks later she introduces me to the kink scene, I go to a bunch of kink events, I see a boy at an event who I’m intrigued to talk to and work up the courage to go say hi, I push for spending lots of time with him, he eventually convinces me to try out Magic after I’ve said no a few times, several years of chaos later I win a big tournament and that tournament is literally perfectly timed for me to get into the now-dead Pro League and subsequently have enough money to buy a house with. Me having a house, my entire way of life, entirely spreads forth from a closeted trans girl thinking I looked cute in my lolita outfit at an anime con and deciding to come flirt with me. I’ve worked hard at points, I’ve taken advantage of opportunities at points, but fundamentally none of this happens if that seemingly minor inciting incident 11 years ago doesn’t cause a cascade of effects stretching through most of my adult life like a butterfly causing a typhoon. I don’t think most people are actually aware of the extent to which their present lives (whether enjoyable or arduous) are caused by minor seemingly innocuous incidents long ago in their past, and that those incidents defined the direction of things so much more than the times in which they’ve had agency.
This was about where my theory, my view of the world, on this stuff ended, but I’d like to take it one step further… I just worked harder preparing for an event than I’ve ever prepared for or worked on anything in my life, and despite that had the worst result I’ve ever had at a big event; I took good care of my body’s physical needs, I was not mentally burnt out and was focused and generally playing well, and I still did incredibly badly.
You see, fundamentally this world and our lives are driven by chaos and noise. Achieving professional success, finding true love or found family, even just reaching a point where your life is comfortable, are things you do not have control over; you can influence the odds to make them more favourable, you can work hard and take advantage of opportunities, but sometimes the chaos will rule against you no matter how hard you try and sometimes it will be gracious towards you despite you acting in every conceivable way to push the odds against yourself. Nothing is guaranteed except that you have far less agency than you think you do and that you should count yourself lucky for the things the chaos of the universe has decided to allow you.
