My book, The Soft Spot for Luck, is a suspense fiction novel with a few elements of fantasy. It is narrated by Luck, an immaterial being that carries chances and watches how ignorantly people waste their time, opportunities, health and lives in a silly rush for happiness, quite often- without knowing what happiness means to them. Luck watches people from her own point of view, and thus, she can see us differently. Here are a few of her thoughts.

“The more I watch human beings in action, the better I understand their motives and behavior. Whenever human brain is about to make a decision, it always looks back at its body to make sure that the outcome of mind work is not going to affect it. Like a clam, whose entire outlook is limited by the size of the shell, supporting its life, a human being is bound to thinking within his body’s physical capacity. Instead of trying to make maximum use of their brains, people have learned to minimize their mind work – sometimes even switch it to zero activity mode – because this, they believe, can protect their bodies against unnecessary risks in given circumstances and environment.”

Luck comes up with the term zero activity mode and comes to a sad conclusion that people deliberately teach each other to set their minds to it:

“They said on TV that a glass of red wine equals an hour at the gym–”, “People say it is safer to vote for the Democrats, so I will–”, “Like my mom, I always take a hot bath when I am getting a cold”: These are examples of setting one’s brain to a zero activity mode. Listen to what others say, follow exactly what others do, and relax! Hmm.

Well, I don’t blame them. This is people’s way to feel safe. The dangerous part is losing intelligence. Because people have to be so cautious about their life and health, they share accumulated knowledge and experience with the young generation to protect it from thoughtlessly ruining their bodies, which, of course, results in nothing else, but boosting their fears to unprecedented levels. Every child’s parents invest most effort into teaching the kid how to switch his mind into zero activity mode since very young age. Uh–huh.”

Due to her ability to look at human beings from a different angle of vision, Luck identifies a few components, which influence our mindwork, but these factors are of litle use to Luck, because people cannot use them to improve their skills of picking lucky chances:

“At the same time, I have come to the conclusion that the human brain operates in a certain, always individual, environment, which is generated by a complex combination of the person’s experiences, fears, knowledge, beliefs and intuition. Every human being, of course, has peculiar levels of each.

These five factors, however, are of little importance when it comes to picking a lucky chance. Chances come and go too quickly, leaving a person no time to process available knowledge, experiences and beliefs; neither he has time to measure his risks by the yardstick of fears. No, these factors are negligible here. Still, one of them attracts my attention as a direct antipode to mind work: intuition. I wonder, how does it influence human decision making?”

Here are Luck’s thoughts about human intuition. I have been wondering, what would people say to these thoughts? If you are not bored reading this so far, please, take na look at two more paragraphs, and maybe you will have something to add or to argue here.

“People describe intuition as “knowledge or belief obtained neither by reason nor by perception.” If I had a human body, I would grin here. This isn’t even a definition! I wish I could face that guy who said this and ask him to clarify. I would say, “So, dear scientist, what is your point? Is your personal intuition a knowledge? Or, maybe, it is your belief? Be precise, please. Define them for me. You suppose that intuition “is obtained neither by reason nor by perception.” Doesn’t it mean that it can’t be obtained at all? And what do you mean by the word “obtained”? No, dear scientist, you have just demonstrated your complete ignorance. You agree with me? Eh?”

Finally, Luck realizes that, of all the five abovementioned factors, intuition is the only one that boosts – rather than slows – our mental activity.

“People know really little about the processes taking place in their own minds. Their knowledge about intuition is fragmentary, despite that every person has it to a greater or lesser degree. Based on intuition, people have made hundreds of outstanding discoveries; intuition helps many to build up correct strategies, make lifetime decisions or plans. But most importantly, intuition is a basic condition for making the right choice of chances. Why? Because it helps people block their fears.”

What do you think about Luck’s conclusions? I would really love to know your thoughts. Today, we are facing the world in its most dramatic change since the beginning of human history. We have created incredible technologies, but we still have not studied the powers given to us by nature. Intuition is one of them, but only a few individuals in the whole history of the world have ever devoted time to studying it. Albert Einstein allegedly called the intuitive or metaphoric mind a sacred gift. He added that the rational mind was a faithful servant. It is paradoxical that in the context of modern life we have begun to worship the servant and defile the divine, he said [1976, The Metaphoric Mind: A Celebration of Creative Consciousness by Bob Samples, Quote Page 26, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Reading, Massachusetts]. Do you agree with all this? What do you think about the nature and powers of our intuition?