On Risk – A Review
Maybe I’m too close to this, but I guess that’s kind of the point.
In my last blog, I called myself a gambler. Which is a superfluous statement. It makes me out to be someone uncalculating, someone willing to bet one thing for another, but that’s just not true.
I do toy a lot with unpredictability. And while I’m not one to constantly calculate, I do find myself pre-generating expectations quite frequently. I find that to be a very human quality, one we all have to keep in check. But a gambler? Well, that implies a sort of consistency that I just don’t have.
However, I can’t say I don’t take risks. I take a lot of risks. In fact, I would say most of my life is decided by several risks that I’m still living through. New York is the most obvious, as is the job itself. Even specific facets of my more private life are pocked with risk. Risks that might be burning me now.
Sometimes I have to remind myself that just because the dice come up 7, doesn’t mean that it wasn’t worth putting my chips on the table. Other times, I act reckless, I assume that risks are necessary. Those are days where I need to learn to step away from the table.
When I was younger, I asked my mom to put $10 on black on a roulette wheel. When she came back, she handed me a 20. I asked if it turned up black, and she dodged the question. I remember being spun some story about splitting differences and betting twice and a whole lot of double speak to explain how I doubled my money.
I obviously didn’t trust it. I snuck the $20 back into my mom’s purse. I’m not sorry, the money felt unearned. I didn’t want a handout. I don’t know if I entirely wanted the risk either. But if I was going to win, I did know I wanted it to be on my terms.
But the funny thing with terms is, when you set them, all you’re doing is increasing the odds of busting. You’re stacking the deck even farther in hopes of some greater moral payout, in hopes of getting something hand-tailored to your manufactured requirements.
What you’re really asking for though, is to flop.
I never bet on anything like that again since. Even in faux gambling games I’m uncomfortable.
And yet, here I am. Living in the rippling climax of too many risks. Vocally, you might hear me begging for a way to escape it all, but if you saw me, when I was alone. If you saw me, when I was asked a question that deals entirely with risk, you’d have seen me double down.
It’s part of who I am, I guess. I know when something is too much, and then I go for it anyway. I don’t ask or overstep, I just try.
And that kind of risk is really something I probably should stop. But, for whatever reason, I don’t want to. In the midst of so much pain, I want to sit back at the table and put my money where my mouth is.
Am I trying to prove something? Or do I just think I’m due for a payout? Sadly, it could even be both. I guess in the quest to matter, I’ve found myself a bit too concerned with chance, and its not even my second yet.
Risk is simultaneously antithetical and necessary for life. It is a core tenant of evolutionary biology. It is the off-center foundation of morality. It is how we’ve managed to become more than nothing. But in ignoring the global risks we, as a species, have taken, we have created the largest monsters anyone has ever faced.
So, I guess, that’s the thread. Acknowledging the risk is more important to me than getting hit with the wrong side of a coin toss. But if I pull at this seam, will I know when to stop? I guess that’s a chance I’m going to have to take.
Thanks for reading. Have a great week. I’m going to. You can bet on it.
