One of the oddities I’m know for among my friends is that I don’t say Bye, I say Good Luck. It is my default farewell.
In my culture, it seems, saying Good Luck instead of a synonym of farewell is rare enough, and odd enough, that I am granted, through the reactions of these friends to my words, a glimpse into the small glitch that happens in their minds when they are wished luck out of context.
My close friends are used to it by now, it’s with their pointing it out that I even became aware of it myself.
So it’s more new acquaintance that I get to observe, as these words enter their ears for the first few times, seeing if their face scrunches up in confusion, or if their eyebrows raise in surprised disbelief. I am left pondering what these reaction say about them.
As will most all of my posts, this one one too connects to Agency… After all, what is Luck, but the space outside of Agency?
I think the people who are surprised by my greeting are perhaps harboring a hidden belief about their own Agency, and wishing luck upon them reveals something about it, because unlike “Bye”, “Good Luck” shines a tiny little light across their Agency, forcing a sliver of self-reflection to be cast upon it, judge it ever so briefly, and shut back down.
But what is revealed? I do not know… It is too early in my cataloguing to tell. People certainly react differently, and I don’t raise the topic until I’ve known a person for some time.
So, for now, I catalogue, in the hopes of one day being able to use just the response of a person to my saying “Good Luck” as a gauge of their Agency.
Wish me Luck.