Luck

A beachcomber finds an incredibly valuable jewel encrusted throne. He hurries back to his grass shack and hides the treasure. A malefactor witnesses the scene, follows the beachcomber, kills him and steals the throne. The moral of the story is "people who live in grass houses shouldn't stow thrones."

All seriousness aside, this little story touches on the nature of luck. Here is a folk story told, with minor variations, in many cultures. "A young boy living on a poor farm in Russia asks his father if he can have a horse. His father explains that they are too poor to buy a horse. The boy cries saying that he is surely the most unlucky of boys, not being able to have the one thing in life he really wants. His father simply says that maybe he is unlucky and maybe he is not. A year passes and the boy befriends a wild horse and takes him home. He asks his father if he can keep the horse. The father tells the boy that he can keep the horse if he can feed and take care of it. The boy jubilantly exclaims to his father that he is surely the luckiest boy on earth. The father simply says that maybe he is lucky and maybe he is not. A few years pass and the boy takes a terrible fall from the horse leaving the boy with a lame leg. He tells his father that he is surely the unluckiest of all boys since he can no longer run and play with his friends. The father says that maybe he is unlucky and maybe he is not. A few years pass and war breaks out. All of the boys friends are taken into the army where most of them die but because he is lame the boy was not drafted. He tells his father that he is the most lucky of boys. You know what the father says and you get the point if this folktale"..

At any moment in time we cannot know what event may ultimately prove to be fortunate or unfortunate. As creative people we often have negative experiences that become material for books, films or poetry. The trick is to transmute the lead of life's disasters into the gold of your art in the crucible of creativity.