The Birth Lottery

As the line begins to dissipate X anxiously awaits to see what fate has in store. Like the untold number that have come before, and that will continue to arrive long into the unknowable future, X can only dream of being assigned a winning lottery ticket. Yet, this is no ordinary draw, so let there be no confusion over the game in which X is about to become a helpless participant.

Normally, when a person hears the term lottery, they think of a tax on the poor and uneducated. Six magical numbers catapult some 'fortuitous' individual into millions. A year later that same individual wakes up to the startling realization that the impossible has happened. Their life is somehow more vacuous than ever before, and their dream of winning the lottery can no longer be used as a placating delusion to get them through their listless days. The stroke of good fortune has come to pass, but the void looms eternal.

It is a depressing scene, and yet the stakes facing X are far more sinister. This is a raffle that will determine the prospects for X's entire life, a rota fortunae known as the birth lottery. Several others ahead of X spin the wheel and receive their results. One wears a look of jubilation, while another bemoans an extra turn that has seen them become the fifth child of a pair of destitute farmers.

As the line continues to thin the countless possibilities decorating the colossal wheel become visible, and X scans them with a mix of excitement and dread. Hoping is futile because when the time comes X will simply have to play the wheel as it lies. It could mean being born to a prosperous family in a developed country, or to refugees fleeing a life of poverty and violence.

As time goes on the birth lottery is forgotten, and the winners have no quarrels about the system itself. They fail to recognize that they are the champions of a game of chance. Any feelings of guilt are assuaged through the creation of myth. An idea is propagated that the only barrier to success is hard work. This fiction is then repackaged and resold in a thousand different ways.

Choice matters, and it would be ridiculous to suggest that the birth lottery determines everything. It is just another fable among many, an absurd invention. X steps forward, takes a deep breath, and spins the wheel.