Just in case...

I fucking hate "just in case."  The phrase implies a certain laissez-faire attitude, yet you are actively probing the unlikely (i.e. shitting on the concept of come what may).  "Just in case" gives primacy to impossibility.  It teases fear out of complacency.  "Just in case" is the seat of a hypochondriac's psychosis: it is unlikely that you have the rare sub-saharan plague that is butchering small puppy liver's throughout midwestern China, but let's check you JUST IN CASE!  Better run just in case I decide to shove my fist up your ass for freaking me out.

I wrote this piece just in case someone is reading my blog.

Probability

I'm having trouble with probability. It seems simple enough: you have a fifty percent chance of getting heads with the flip of a coin. There is a 25% chance of flipping heads twice and so forth. Where I get stuck is that although there is a 25% chance of flipping heads twice, if I flip heads once, on the next flip there's 50% chance of flipping heads on this go around. Mathematically it makes sense and is almost childish in it's simplicity. But the point of probability is not only mathematical prediction, but a way to describe and understand our environment. Unfortunately it goes against the value I place on it. Past probability has no impact in present probability. Although I can predict a 25% chance of heads twice, it has no bearing on the moment of action.

How does this affect me? Let's say that there is a 25% chance of your head exploding if you drink a pint of Jaeger mixed with espresso and hot sauce. This is based on observations of things that occur in the past. Based on this percentage I think, well shit, there's 3/4 of a chance my head won't explode so pour me a drink! Although rationally I know that this bit of "science" carries no protection, irrationally I don't act this way. I use percentages as a protective guide as if these past events shape the present.

The thing that really gets me is what are my chances? My father had a heart attack at 38 and died of heart disease at 57. I eat differently, don't smoke, minimize time on my ass but I have a high stress job. If 5% of people in my situation have an MI, does that mean I have a 5% chance? Or do I have an X% chance that in the grand scheme of things only carries meaning as a single mathematical point in thousands observed from afar?