As a writer, I am always fascinated by terms I hadn't known. Such a one came to me this year-- black swan.
Definition: A black swan is an unpredictable event that is beyond what is normally expected of a situation and has potentially severe consequences. Black swan events are characterized by their extreme rarity, their severe impact, and the practice of explaining widespread failure to predict them as simple folly in hindsight.
Some take them only to be about major institutions or events that impact a whole culture or even the world. I think they can be seen as also about our individual lives.
