Most of what happens in our lives conforms fairly closely to what we’ve come to expect. Most Tuesdays are, generally, rather a lot like most other Tuesdays, and the news most days is not significantly more or less notable than most other days. The weather is, generally, about what you’d expect for the time of year, and most lunches are not significantly more or less enjoyable than most other lunches. Memorable events are rare, and, almost tautologically, the truly salient events in one’s life – the things that come along “once in a blue moon” – are extremely rare. When they do happen, they are generally either thrilling, wonderful, electrifying moments that will glow happily in our memory for the rest of our lives, or they are the great tragedies and calamities that take the measure of us all.
We are blessed, I think, that the natural order of things – perhaps it is Zipf’s Law at work – spares most of us from too many of these extremes. Roller coasters are popular, but nobody wants to live on one.
When the big, bad things happen, we can be thankful that they are rare. And when the good ones do – and how sweet they can be – we should simply be thankful to be here at all.