David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

sirens, watch the enemy bombers
overhead, and hear the thunder of the
exploding bombs. But the bomb hits
down the street or the next block over.
And for them, the consequences of a
bombing attack are exactly the opposite
of the near-miss group. They survived,
and the second or third time that
happens, the emotion associated with the
attack, MacCurdy wrote, “is a feeling of
excitement with a flavour of
invulnerability.” A near miss leaves you
traumatized. A remote miss makes you
think you are invincible.
In diaries and recollections of
Londoners who lived through the Blitz,
there are countless examples of this
phenomenon. Here is one: