Sometimes I think my life is ruled by synchronicity (think Koestler, not Sting). <\/p>\n
First, Bill Whittle does his lyrical piece on “Courage<\/a>“.<\/p>\n Then it turns out that Tenacious G and the boys haven’t seen the Branagh ‘Henry V<\/A>‘, so we jump it to the head of the Netflix<\/a> queue, and it shows up in the mail. We watched it the other night, and it was still wonderful (Yes, Bacchus, I’m still supporting Branagh’s erotic reward<\/a>). My boys loved it as well; Littlest Guy, who is six, wanted to watch it again the next day, and spent the time after bath and before bed wandering the house in his blue PJ’s-with-rocket-ships-and-feet and a stern look, declaiming “No King<\/u> of England if not King of France<\/u>.” I love my sons and they are wonderful, but they are a bit\u2026odd, sometimes. Somehow that<\/b> line over all the others had caught him, and he and I had a long discussion in which I explained that Henry wanted to be King of France, and that he was willing to risk losing England to get it.<\/p>\n Then, as a part of a possible venture I may do with an old friend, we had a long ‘strategy’ talk, in which one issue that we tried to address is our differing appetite for risk; he’s been incredibly (deservedly) successful, and as a consequence has capital he wants to preserve, while I’m trying to get to the point of having some capital to worry about losing. <\/p>\n And I had one of my frequent “aha!” moments, and I realized that the issue of courage is really inseparable from the issue of risk, and that we have, I believe some issues with risk in this society, and I think that those issues are of vital importance today.<\/p>\n – They are important to our self-understanding as people; This is going to be longer than I have time to do all at once, and doubtless than you have the patience to read in one sitting, so I will be putting up a stream of posts over the next few days (I’ll try and do one a day).<\/p>\n Here’s the outline:<\/p>\n 1. Introduction (this one); Let me open with some comments.<\/p>\n For most of my adult life, I’ve been someone with a high tolerance for risk.<\/p>\n I’ve taken professional risks.<\/p>\n I’ve taken risks in relationships.<\/p>\n I’ve participated in risky sports; rock- and mountain-climbing, sailboat ocean racing, motorcycle sport riding and racing.<\/p>\n But I work hard to manage the risks that I take. While I’ve had some (spectacular) professional failures, the downside has been for the most part managed. The people whose relationships I’ve become serious about have stuck with me. And in my hobbies, I’ve worked hard to embody the best techniques and use the best tools to ensure my safety.<\/p>\n As a good example, when I ride my motorcycle, I wear protective gear from Aerostich, Z Leathers, Boehn, Shoei, Daytona, and Held. I’ve been to the best training I can find. I’m conscious and methodical about the risks take, and about the exposure to damage that those risks imply.<\/p>\n My pursuit of martial arts\u2026including the shooting arts and other weapons arts\u2026is in no small part aimed at managing my risk.<\/p>\n So I think about risk quite a bit. I don\u2019t see myself as foolish (think of a helmetless rider on a 160mph motorcycle wearing a t-short, shorts, and Vans sneakers), I think of myself who is conscious of risk and who tries hard to manage it to acceptable levels.<\/p>\n I can’t imagine not taking risks. Not only would I would have missed some of the best experiences of my life, but I can’t imagine looking at risks as ‘black or white’ rather that examining their subtleties and looking at them as objectively as I know how. To me, that<\/u> is real safety. Ignoring risks, or shying away from them, isn’t.<\/p>\n What I see in many people is a simple shying away from risk. I see it ly, as people are unwilling to open themselves to relationships for fear of being hurt \u2013 and then soak in the pain of their loneliness. I see it in business where people in organizations won’t take the risk of speaking out, even when silence imposes greater long-term risks on their organization and so their job. I see it in people’s lives, as we increasingly try and mummy ourselves in increasing layers of padding designed to keep us from the sharp corners of the world.<\/p>\n I followed a van today; the signs on it explained that it was the ‘Babyproofing Man’. So we hire someone to put plastic caps on the sharp corners of our homes, and try and raise our children in cocoons where risk can be managed away.<\/p>\n It can’t be.<\/p>\n Our children are always at risk, and we can’t protect them everywhere and forever. <\/p>\n What we can do is to teach them to think clearly about risk, and learn to control it themselves.<\/p>\n There’s a telling little scene in the book and movie ‘Black Hawk Down’, in which one of the Delta operators at Mogadishu is dressed down by a regular Army NCO for not having ‘safed’ his weapon. The operator looks at the NCO and wags his index finger in his face.<\/p>\n “This is my<\/i> safety.”<\/p>\n Consider this my finger wagging in your face, asking what you<\/b> see as your<\/b> safety.<\/p>\n \u2026to be continued<\/i>.<\/p>\n Part I is here<\/a> [Read Part 1: Risk | Part 2: Risky Business | Part 3: Risk & Reality | Part 4: Risk & Politics | Risk, Reality, & Bullsh-t ] Sometimes I think my life is ruled by synchronicity (think Koestler, not Sting). First, Bill Whittle does his lyrical piece on “Courage“. Then it turns out that Tenacious […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n – They are important to understanding what is happing to our economy;
\n – They are important to our politics;
\n – Many of the social issues we face in America today center around different understandings of risk;
\n – And finally, our struggles over decisions about Iraq have much to do with our differing perceptions and reactions to risk.<\/p>\n
\n2. Risk in Business;
\n3. Risk and Recklessness in Society;
\n4. Risk in Politics;
\n5. Iraq and Risk.
\n6. Wrapup (and hopefully response to interesting comments)<\/p>\n
\nThis<\/a> is Part II
\nThis<\/a> is Part III
\nParts IV > VI aren’t written yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"