Sunday, May 12, 2013

a·le·a·to·ry


























(Source: Helminadia Jabur, Mount Bromo)

I learned a new word today: aleatory.  

It means dependent on chance, luck or uncertain outcomes.

It reminds me of this quote by Bill Bryson (note: I highly recommend his books):

“Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stranded, stuck fast, untimely wounded, or otherwise deflected from its life's quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material to the right partner at the right moment in order to perpetuate the only possible sequence of hereditary combinations that could result -- eventually, astoundingly, and all too briefly -- in you.” 
- Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything 

A Short History of Nearly Everything articulates the aleatory element in life.  (or, in slang, it's pretty fucking incredible we exist)




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