"I feel like a fugitive from the law of averages"

Bill Mauldin’s phrase, “I feel like a fugitive from the law of averages,” is a wry observation about the unpredictable and often irrational nature of experience. The law of averages refers to the principle that outcomes, given enough trials, will tend to even out, fortunes will balance, streaks will end, and everyone ultimately returns to the mean. Mauldin’s words play with this statistical inevitability, suggesting an existence that defies such balancing out or refuses to be reined in by typical expectations.

To “feel like a fugitive” evokes the image of someone on the run, stealthy and elusive, perhaps always looking over their shoulder. There’s an anxiety embedded in the statement, a sense of vulnerability as if, despite efforts to evade the so-called “law,” some reckoning is always looming. Mauldin taps into the common human perception that luck, happiness, or hardship cannot last forever, there’s always a correction around the corner. To feel out of step with this relentless balancing act can create tension: perhaps feeling too lucky for too long, or conversely, burdened by a streak of misfortune that never seems to give way to the expected upswing.

This idea is humorously paradoxical. No one, after all, can literally escape probability or the inevitable ebb and flow of life’s events. Yet, many experience periods in life where outcomes seem to defy reason, expectations, or statistics, either for better or worse. Mauldin’s wording laces this existential predicament with irony: the supposed “protection” or “punishment” by the law of averages does not always align with subjective experience. Thus, the quote hints not only at resignation or wry acceptance but also at a sense of rebellion, an insistence on one’s unique place amid the randomness, as if to say that, for some, even the cosmic laws are meant to be dodged, if only for a while.