—Tripping on the stairs: as someone who always almost falls, I can’t tell you quite what it is about stairs that make them so good at tripping people. I guess I’m expecting stairs of a different height/length and am not looking down or something. The worst are stairs that decided it would be fun to have a little lip. My foot gets caught, and down I go into an awkward pushup position, the things I was carrying gone flying down behind me.
—Slipping on ice: same thing. I just messed up. Misjudged/misreacted or something. Got startled and it pushed me off balance just that much too long that gravity found me.
—Slighting a good friend/relative: someone not realizing that as they’re making themselves at an advantage they’re disadvantaging a loved one; someone deciding their advantage is worth another’s disadvantage; anger causing a desire for revenge; intense dislike of the person; etc
—Commiting a heinous crime: jealousy; lost love; feelings of entitlement; anger; feeling like they have no other option in their life for whatever reason; etc
—Failing to properly conceal a heinous crime: if it was done in the heat of passion they weren’t thinking about the after-effects; maybe they just aren’t that good at covering their tracks; maybe they missed something to cover up; maybe the detective is really good.
I think they’re mistakes because they’re not imminent, they’re not seen coming. Or it wasn’t seen as a mistake by the doer of said “wrong doing”.
I know when I’m climbing up those stairs I’m sure not looking for opportunities to fall. If anything, after repeated falls, I’m looking out for them. And when I’m… say, answering a test question, I think the answers were all right until I get it back covered in red ink.
It would take seeing it’s a mistake prior to doing it to avoid it. Which maybe, if we all look out really hard for possible mistakes, would prevent a lot more of them.—Maybe I look down at the stairs more.—It reminds me a little of the movie Minority Report (which I haven’t had the opportunity to see the end of, but still…)