Day to day we are arrogant to our surroundings, we remain in our own world’s. However when we take the time, the time to drift, suddenly everything becomes clearer and in sharp focus, are senses come alive. We have the chance to notice and see things we wouldn’t usually see.
We took part in an exercise where we were told to complete a journey using an object to decide the direction of our journey, we decided to use a coin and so flipped the coin a total of 15 times, its face decided whether we would turn left or right on our journey. If a tail appeared we would turn left and a head was to turn right, the route to our journey was left to chance. The results of our journey were: tails appearing 5 times and heads appearing 10 times. Although we hoped our destination would be the 3rd floor of the main administration building in Lincoln University (a place we had never explored before) the coin produced a tail and led us on a left turn to a door with a ‘no entry’ sign. This meant we could not continue our journey, the coin decided where we would go. It was left to chance.
Every time we leave our homes, we take a chance. When we drive our cars or take the bus we take a chance we will arrive safe. When we go to a restaurant and we try something new we chance whether we will like it or not. When having an operation although the operation may have a 60% success rate we take a chance on whether we will pull through. Soldiers take a chance with their lives every day. If a fallen soldier had the chance to decide, it’s easy to assume what he would choose. If the soldiers had facts and statistics to help aid them with what they chose, they would maybe reconsider their options. But that’s the point in chance, you never no, and soldiers accept that, and in their own way come to terms with being at risk every day.
We wanted to explore chance, and what happens when you leave things to chance, what are the results and outcomes? Unpredictable.