Complex Numbers

Survival

I'm not what you'd call a big risk-taker.

PROMPT November 16th

Write about the biggest risk you ever took. What was the result?

Kid Me was, though. When I was young, I took all kinds of chances, and for no good reasons: walking on questionable ice, diving off of high places, stunt biking, lighting firecrackers in my hands, cussing in front of my dad, hitchhiking... between the things I did for kicks and just being around farm machinery, cattle, horses, boats, snakes, and pickup trucks, there were plenty of risks for me to take.

But that was when I was young and indestructible. You can't prove that I wasn't indestructible, by the way; I never broke a bone or suffered other serious injury; nor did any of my various cuts and scrapes ever result in infection. The only times I've been close to death have been due to illness, not injury.

I survived all of that. Obviously.

Nowadays, naturally, I'd probably break fifteen different bones in twenty different places if I so much as fell down a flight of stairs, which is another thing I did on purpose just for fun as a kid.

So when it comes to risk these days, well, the biggest risk I took in the last nine months has been a series of trips to the dentist's office. These days, that's risky as hell -- but worth it considering the toothache pain it resolved. Look, I've had appendicitis and a heart attack, neither of which was what you'd call comfortable, and I'd go through either of those again if it meant a choice between that and the toothache I was experiencing.

Anyway, back to the prompt. We run into semantic issues again: what's meant by "biggest?"

It could mean the highest value that could be lost -- but value is relative. Some of the risks I took as a kid, I only see as risks now looking back and going, "Damn, I did some stupid shit." Most kids do, though, because like I said, kids think they're indestructible.

Or it could mean the highest value that could potentially be gained -- also subjective.

Or perhaps a combination of the two.

Thinking back, probably the biggest risk I took in my adult life wasn't physical at all, but economic: when I quit my job and started a business. "What was the result?" Well, it was fine at first and then about a dozen things happened all at once, including the Bush recession, my father's death, and my wife dumping my ass, and then everything fell apart.

I always tell people that there is no such thing as a happy ending; there are only stories that end too soon. And like everyone's story, mine will have an unhappy and unsatisfying ending, sooner or later. But everything ended up working out just fine for me after that, and I'm mostly where I want to be in life.

Would I be in an even better place now if I'd taken more risks? Maybe. Who the hell knows? That would make me a different person, and I'm pretty comfortable with the way things are for me.

And it's precisely because I like where I am right now (apart from a few constrictions that nearly everyone's experiencing in these times) that I don't see the need to take further major risks. I'm well past the "hold my beer and watch this" stage of my life, and there aren't many potential rewards that are worth staking anything on.

Nothing, of course, is risk-free. Stay at home all the time and you end up slipping in the shower or some embarrassing shit like that. So as soon as it's practical, I'm going to travel again. Hold my beer and watch me.