On a summer Saturday road trip, listening to a song (“Crazy Circles“) by old rock band Bad Company and the lyrics caught me mid-thought on a topic of entropy and political power: “Life is just a game of chance.”

While it is true that life is fundamentally random and the large-scale statistical drift into patterns and oscillating cycles is beyond anyone’s direct control, it is also true that those might few who find themselves in possession of a “winning hand” will generally do everything in their power to make it appear as though there was some necessity or inevitability as to their privilege.

The rest of us, to our own shame, tend to accept this putative inevitability by proxy; being far too busy just trying to keep our heads above water, we tend to acquiesce and go with the flow. Even as we recognise the rank corruption of our context, we find it easier, less complicated to continue playing this game.