Two stories caught my eye this morning on the Huffington Post. A train wreck north of New York City that killed four people and injured 70. The train was scheduled to arrive at Grand Central Station an hour after it left Poughkeepsie. The crash is under investigation.
The second story concerned Paul Walker, the star of the “Fast & Furious” movie series, who died Saturday in a car crash outside Los Angeles. Walker, 40 years old, was a passenger in a friend’s car. A preliminary sheriff’s report cited speed as a factor in the crash.
Opposite sides of the country, different mode of travel, different reasons for the accidents, but something in common. We place our safety, often our life, in the hands of others. We assume they know what they’re doing; that they take their responsibility for our life seriously. We hope they are not distracted by their phone or compromised by alcohol or drugs. We take for granted that they know the rules of the road, and have the reflexes to respond to unexpected situations.
This is the stuff of everyday, ordinary life, not the hazards of being in a battle zone or a besieged territory in a third world country. It’s not the danger of being trampled to death at a Walmart on Black Friday, nor the randomness of being shot at or having the roof collapse at a mall.
We must believe that it’s safe to be a passenger instead of the driver. But when you get right down to it, even when we’re the driver, we have only the illusion of control. Irony, coincidence and luck are always in the driver’s seat. That’s why gratitude is the antidote to life in a random universe.