One Damned Thing After Another: a British catchphrase, memorialized as the title of a novel by John Masefield.
The essence of Brian's Question is beautifully addressed by Zoe Mulford:
one damn thing after another troubles got to stand in line
stick with me we'll get through this
together taking one damn thing at a timethere was the thing with the ceiling there was the thing with the floor
there was the thing with the funny kind of feeling in the ambulance a quarter to fourone damn thing after another troubles kinda stand in line
Oh stick with me we'll get through this together takin' one damn thing timethere was the thing with the plumbing there was the thing with those guys
there was the thing that would kind of suck coming
and the thing that was a total surpriseone damn thing after another troubles gotta stand in line
Oh stick with me we'll get through this together
taking one damn thing at a time
one damn thing one damn thing
we can make it if we take it just one damn thing at a timethere was the thing with the really bad decision
and the thing that just gave us the blues
the thing with the thing that wound up on television
and every damn thing in the newsone damn thing after another troubles can stand in line
Oh stick with me we'll get through this together
taking one damn thing at a timeone damn thing after another don't you let it get you down
any day that brings another damn thing is a day that we're still above groundone damn thing after another troubles gotta stand in line
Oh stick with me we'll get through this together
takin' one damn thing at a time
and one more:
* * * * *
Brian's original Question asks:
My take on this is to look at a universal human question:
and its personification as
WHY did X happen to ME?
Lots of energies go into constructing answers, and there's a vast litany of stories
spawned to transmit provisional explanations, each of which draws on a version of Reality
— and none of which is entirely satisfactory.
Seeking for Explanation may be THE most unceasing human activity.
Consider this list of possibilities:
Fate
Destiny
Luck
Chance
Karma
Sin, and The Fall
Pandora's Box
Evil
the Tao
the Absurd
God's Will
x => y => z chains of causation ('science')
(surely there are others)
Another way to frame the Question is in this eternally unanswered plaint:
Our culture offers many proverbial responses and recipes for appropriate action for the aggrieved,
but none that satisfy the wish for retribution and comeuppance
and for those who crave justice and judgement:
Time Wounds All Heels
They'll get their just deserts...
Chickens Come Home to Roost
What could have happened DID...
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 ('Turn, Turn, Turn')
"All that you do, it come back to you. You got to bear the consequence".
Perhaps the most useful formula came in a story told to me by Alice Jansen,
Lahlee as she was known to her grandchildren (my nieces and nephew).
I think it was advice given by someone who took care of her when she was a child:
Take it as it comes, Lamby, take it as it comes.
* * * * *
We may hope for the judgement of higher powers:
(Simone Martini, 1320-25)
* * * * *
It's worth contemplating the austere Calvinist vision of 18th century New Englanders, as expressed in my Concord graveyard album
and the concept of Memento Mori (and see also Wikipedia on Memento Mori and beyond):
(Which leads me to examining my explorations of memorial arts and the Colma pet cemetery)
and if all else fails:
