If anything has ever struck a metaphysical chord with me it is the topic of fortune. Luck has had a reputation through the ages of being handed down directly from God. I do believe that humans attach importance to things that they can’t control and to explain the unexplainable. It is just part of who we are. When we see a person of talent skill and character(virtue) who is unable to achieve the type of success that seems within their grasp, it is gut-wrenching. Particularly in those that we love. We all hope for good, or at least neutral fortune to touch our own children so that they can realize their full capacity. Conversely, it is unseemly for someone to reach beyond their ability due to good fortune. Within man-made societal structure, one could expect to see ability and merit have a greater bearing on the outcome, assuming one resides within an evolved modern setting. The universe, however, is not as kind. I think we can all look no further than our own families to see examples of capable people who, through no perceived fault of their own, seem unable to make an impact commensurate to their ability. At lunchtime from work yesterday I drove past the cemetery that holds the remains of my great grandmother Leva Olga Sipress. She lived to be quite old so I was able to have very clear memories of her from my youth, though it is difficult for a young person to truly connect with someone of that age. I guess mostly I remember the chores that we did at her house. I also remember being somewhat uncomfortable for her as a teenager seeing her body begin to breakdown to the point where her vision and hearing were greatly affected. Her stone says that she was born in 1887 and died in 1983. I knew some of her story and some of it was apparent from the stones next to hers. To the right of her is the stone for her daughter Alice. She died at the age of two, and from what I was told it was from causes that are easily remedied in our time, but were still lethal in those days. What could she have been had she had the chance? It is safe to say that dying at the age of two means that the potential could never be realized in her life. That type of misfortune was certain to be treated fatalistically and said to be the mysterious workings of God, especially in those days when relatively little was still known about modern treatments for disease. To the left of Leva was her husband Herman. He was an engineer for the railroad when an explosion killed him in 1923. He was nine years older than his wife, but that still puts him at about 45 when he died all those years ago. My knowledge of the railroad would tell me that it did require a man of some skill and above-average intellect to be an actual engineer on the railroad both then and now. One cannot be sure whether or not he was working in a position commensurate to his ability in those days, but it seems unlikely that he was a buffoon in that position. His passing had an impact on generations to follow including my own. His son, my Grandfather Art, was a musician. He was also a bit of a tinkerer. Because the main breadwinner was no longer around Art left home at age 14 and traveled with a circus playing trombone in the band. Not a particularly wise move, and certainly not one that would lead to a great measure of financial success. While he played and loved music for his whole life, his time as a tinkerer provided the greatest benefit to his own family (he ended up having seven children including my mother) in jobs that were considered fairly skilled for the times. He was a machine maintenance man at a large manufacturing facility and a horn tester at a local musical instrument manufacturing company. I wonder what paths he may have chosen had he a father that could give both advice and financial aid in getting and education. Since my mother was a single mother, I spent enough time with him to know that he was not an intellectual slouch. In addition, I can say he was the hardest working man I had ever then or now met in my life. He could afford to send only one of his children to college but largely was unable to move their station in life much higher than his own. I am explaining all of this simply because it is my belief that wealth, affluence and personal capability are all very difficult to realize full potential in one lifetime. It takes several generations to create a lasting change in a family with potential. That one accident created enough difficulty to delay our family’s process of evolution by at least 1 and maybe 2 generations in my estimation. The generation older than me is filled with bright people of unrealized potential. I am not saying that all of them should be wealthy, successful and philanthropic, but most of them seem more capable than others I have met along my journey who have worked in closer proximity to their capabilities. I grant that this is an oversimplification, but it does dramatize the point that both fortune and virtue must work together for a person to do the most good in his or her time on Earth.
While my grandfather’s family may have been struck by misfortune, my grandmother’s family seemed a different lesson. My Great Grandfather on her side (last name of Cochran) appeared to be of some talent and affluence in his own time. I have heard stories that range from ownership of hotels and amusement parks to the owner of the Ohio Power Company. It would appear that he made some progress in allowing further generations to have a positive impact on the world on a large scale. In this case, as the family mythology goes, it appears that his major deficiency may have been in training the next generation. Beyond my Grandmother, who becomes a kind of black sheep for marrying a musician, he had a number of sons. Whatever skills may have been with the father do not appear to have been transferred to the sons. Within one generation the sons consumed the ability to make deep impacts into their environment. Whatever the virtues of these younger men were, they were not able to build upon earlier generations. This is truly a case where fortune was in their favor, but virtue was not.
Hopefully, the lesson here lies in the recognition that both fortune and virtue working together allow some large productive contribution to humankind. While most of the people in these stories gave more than they took, I can’t help but wonder how much human capacity lay unused. I am aware of my own inevitable journey to anonymity, and it is a painful foresight. I do take some solace in the fact that I have made a solid attempt at being the quiet cog, pushing the possibilities of moral and spiritual contributions by those generations that may follow me.