LAWS... of Edward A Murphy Jr. & Others

One definition of law is that it is a system of rules and guidelines enforced through social institutions to govern behaviour. There are certain natural laws too, whose governing body appears to be human nature in the wild - or maybe "fate". These laws and rules happen automatically, we don't need to strive not to fall foul of them, most will automatically fall foul of us, and frequently.
Some are well known, such as

Murphy's Law, the all-encompassing one : Anything that can go wrong will go wrong. Facets of this, and similar natural "laws" tend to group themselves along lines which, for fun, I'll link to astrological signs and planets, starting with another well-known example, and this falls naturally under


Mercury/Virgo - mental acuity, discernment:

Occam’s Razor, not so much a law, I guess, as a handy suggestion, but it is also known as the law of economy or law of parsimony, a principle stated by William of Ockham (1285–1347/49): “Plurality should not be posited without necessity.” The principle gives precedence to simplicity - of two competing theories, the simpler explanation is to be preferred. In other words, any time there are several hypotheses that could explain an observation, phenomenon or event, it is usually best to start with the simplest one. There's an opposite reaction to everything though, therefore:

Occam's Duct Tape - the opposite mental process to Occam's razor: to avoid simplicity, to leave no entity unmultiplied and to make as many unnecessary assumptions as possible when pondering an idea — this is sometimes referred to, jocularly, as Occam's duct tape.
Or:
Crabtree's Bludgeon - an observation which serves as a foil to Occam's razor, characterizing a very different cognitive process exhibited in certain kinds of people, which states:
”No set of mutually inconsistent observations can exist for which some human intellect cannot conceive a coherent explanation, however complicated."

There's DeVault's Razor, which strips down Occam's even further:
"There are only two laws:
Someday you will die.
If you read this, you are not dead yet."


Moving on -

Uranus- Out where the buses don't run

Jimmy Buffett's Law of Sanity:
If we weren't all crazy, we would go insane.


Sattinger's Law: It works better when you plug it in.




Onward to
Capricorn/Saturn - working life:

Parkinson's Law: Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.

The Peter Principle: In any hierarchy, every individual tends to rise to his level of incompetence.
Corollary: Work is done by those individuals who have not yet risen to their level of incompetence.

Not forgetting -
The Rule of the Great:
When someone you greatly admire and respect appears to be thinking deep thoughts, they probably are thinking about lunch.

Then we have

Aquarius/ Capricorn/ Saturn - Law, politics etc.

Evans' Law of Political Perfidy: When our friends get into power, they aren't our friends anymore.


Jacquin's Postulate: No man's life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session.

Alley's Axiom: Justice always prevails ... three times out of seven.

Specht's Meta-Law: Under any conditions, anywhere, whatever you are doing, there is some ordinance under which you can be booked.


And

Sagittarius/Jupiter - Travel

George Carlin's Driving Law: Everyone driving slower than you is an idiot. Everyone driving faster than you is a maniac.

Oliver's Law of Location: No matter where you go, there you are.


Then there's
Aries/Mars -
Damon Runyon's Law:
The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet.

My own blog even has its own law:
Unwin's Learning Curve: Experience is what enables us to make a new mistake each time.


Oh! - And there's always Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage.


My thanks to "law" sources HERE, HERE, and HERE.

KISMET ?

 The 3 Fates Gathering in the Stars by Elihu Vedder

"You know how often the turning down this street or that, the accepting or rejecting of an invitation, may deflect the whole current of our lives into some other channel. Are we mere leaves, fluttered hither and thither by the wind, or are we rather, with every conviction that we are free agents, carried steadily along to a definite and pre-determined end?"
~Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, from the Stark Munro Letters.

Our human predecessors had found, or constructed, an answer to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's question. In Greek, Roman and Norse mythology we find related versions of the same story: "The Fates". In each case a trio of females representing past, present and future, prepare the destinies of gods and men, serve the unchanging laws of the cosmos. They were unanswerable to even the greatest of the gods.

Greek mythology called them the Moirai: Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos.
In Roman mythology they became the Parcae: Nona, Decima, Morta.
While in northern climes Norse myths had the Norns: Wyrd, Verdandi and Skuld.

Variations on a theme. Briefly the three females represent the thread of time: becoming/being/what will be. They weave the patterns of our lives, spinning the thread, measuring it and cutting it off. The story from Norse mythology varies somewhat by depicting the three Norns as living at the base of the World Tree, Yggdrasil. The Norns tend the World Tree by pouring mud and water from the Well of Fate over its branches to preserve it.
The Norns would seem to have been of even greater significance than their Greek and Roman counterparts. They were thought to be older than the gods, and originally came from Jotunheim, land of the giants, travelled to Asgard, home of the gods, where they spun a thread on which hung the destiny of the universe itself.

All versions of the "Fates" myths have one thing in common: they suggest an abiding belief that an unseen force shapes our lives.

“The man who believes that the secrets of the world are forever hidden lives in mystery and fear. Superstition will drag him down. The rain will erode the deeds of his life. But that man who sets himself the task of singling out the thread of order from the tapestry will by the decision alone have taken charge of the world and it is only by such taking charge that he will effect a way to dictate the terms of his own fate.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West.

Fate and things........

THE 3 FATES

"You know how often the turning down this street or that, the accepting or rejecting of an invitation, may deflect the whole current of our lives into some other channel. Are we mere leaves, fluttered hither and thither by the wind, or are we rather, with every conviction that we are free agents, carried steadily along to a definite and pre-determined end?"
(Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, from the Stark Munro Letters)

SUPERIORITY to fate
Is difficult to learn.
’T is not conferred by any,
But possible to earn

A pittance at a time,
Until, to her surprise,
The soul with strict economy
Subsists till Paradise. (Emily Dickinson)

“Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.”(Marcus Aurelius)

Credit: Non Sequitur cartoons.




The Fickle Finger of.....


Another Fickle Finger, this one shot by my husband. We see it occasionally on our travels in Oklahoma. Some creative local has fashioned it from pieces of scrap metal.

"Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant, filled with odd waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don't always like." (Lemony Snicket)