The 50/50 Corollary

Because my writing style is not so much derivative as it is plagiaristic (tomato/to-mah-to), I tend to subconsciously replicate whatever is currently on my reading list. With that in mind, I bring you the first installment of "What I'm Reading" – a mostly masturbatorial exercise in giving credit where credit is due.

I am about two-thirds through Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs by Spin writer, Esquire columnist and sometimes ESPN.com contributor Chuck Klosterman. What's the book about, you ask? Try this one on for size:

Life is chock-full of lies, but the biggest lie is math. That's particularly clear in the discipline of probability, a field of study that's completely and wholly fake. When push comes to shove – when you truly get down to the core essence of existence – there is only one mathematical possibility: Everything is 50-50. Either something will happen, or something will not.

When you flip a coin, what are the odds of it coming up heads? 50-50. Either it will be heads, or it will not. When you roll a six-sided die, what are the odds that you'll roll a three? 50-50. You'll either get a three, or you won't. That's reality. Don't fall into the childish 'it's one-in-six' logic trap. That is precisely what all your adolescent authority figures want you to believe. That's how they enslave you. That's how they stole your conviction, and that's why you will never be happy. Either you will roll a three, or you will not; there are no alternatives. The future has no memory. Certain things can be impossible, and certain things can be guaranteed--but there is no sliding scale for maybe. Maybe something will happen, or maybe it won't. That's all there is. What are the chances that your sister will die from ovarian cancer next summer? 50-50 (either she'll die from ovarian cancer or she won't). What are the chances that your sister will become America's most respected underwater wielding specialist? 50-50. It will happen, or it won't. There are two possibilities, and both are plausible and unknown. The odds are 2:1. These facts are irrefutable.

Quasi-intellectuals like to claim that math is spiritual. They are lying. Math is not religion. Math is the antireligion, because it splinters the gravity of life's only imperative equation: Either something is true, or it isn't. Do or do not; there is no try.

Or if that was a bit too existential for you, there's always this bit of wisdom disguised in a generational metaphor: "Quite simply, Winona Ryder is Luke Skywalker, only with a better haircut and a killer rack."

And that, folks, is what I'm reading. Happy now?