If There's One Thing I Know, It's That My Place On Fortune's Wheel Is Stable, Deserved, and Assured

Sort-of-previously in this series: It’s 1178 BCE and the Bronze Age has never looked stronger. No, I won’t lift my eyes to the horizon right now.

“Thou deemest Fortune to have changed towards thee; thou mistakest. Such ever were her ways, ever such her nature. Rather in her very mutability hath she preserved towards thee her true constancy…Thou hast resigned thyself to the sway of Fortune; thou must submit to thy mistress's caprices. What! art thou verily striving to stay the swing of the revolving wheel? Oh, stupidest of mortals, if it takes to standing still, it ceases to be the wheel of Fortune.”

—Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, Book II

Even the goddess Fortune needs a rest sometimes! Wheels can’t turn forever!

Here I am at the top, where I’m liable to stay! “You reach the top, and there you stop,” as they say!

Do they not say that where you’re from? You can be the first one to get it started.

Sure, some have suffered great misfortune after receiving unexpected windfalls. But not me! The only “fall” in my future is “more windfalls”!

If you ask me, worldly and temporal things make great foundations. They’re secure!!

Happiness breeds more happiness. Everybody knows this. It’s just common sense! Like breeds like, baby!

Here I am at the top of the world, looking down on everyone beneath me. You know what that makes me feel? Confident. I’m supposed to be up here!

I think the wheel of fortune likes me.

There’s a fixed and natural order to things, I know that much, and my placement on the very top of this wheel is as fixed and natural as it gets. I don’t know who was up here before me, but I’m sure he lost his position due to a significant error or personal failing I’ll be sure not to replicate.

Here I am, top of the wheel, where nothing can touch me!!!

I don’t think very much about the people below me on the wheel. We’re so far apart that it’s very unlikely I’ll ever run into any of them again!

It’s true that noble Hector, and Troilus, and Alexander, and Adam, and Samson, and Hercules, and Nebuchadnezzar, and Julius Caesar were all unexpectedly brought low from their seats of greatness. But that’s not going to happen to me!

I like to think I can allow my status to bear my full weight. This foothold feels pretty sturdy to me — and I should know! I’m standing on the top of Fortune’s Wheel!

They say Fortune favors me “for now,” which is terrific, because the present moment is really all we have!

Fortune is like the moon: Always in the sky! Yes sir, a lot of things might change here on earth, but the moon is always there, a sign of unwavering constancy and substance.

Or it’s like ice! Very hard, very thick, and easy to rest on.

If the wheel starts to move again, I look forward to seeing all the unexpected gifts it brings me again. Round two, baby!!

[The Troy Book’s Wheel of Fortune, The Moralia of Job’s Wheel of Fortune]