[LEMONS] 8.20.2003
Yeah, I'll try that.
American culture actively discourages you from taking risks. It's hard-wired into our post-war culture. Embedded into the language, even. We are constantly discouraged from engaging in "risky behavior." Virtually everything we purchase now carries warnings as to its potential risks. Risk of heart disease. Risk of lung cancer. Risk of electrical shock and/or death.Risks are unacceptable, and must therefore be managed. Entire professions, corporations, and university fields of study have erupted like teenage acne across the face of America dedicated solely to the study and management of risks. Risk management: it's not just a career, it's a lifestyle.
Yet the progression of society is completely dependent on risk-taking. Risks took Magellan around the world, Columbus to the Caribbean, Einstein from E to MC2, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldren to the Moon, Christian missionaries to establish a church in ancient Rome and Galileo to defy the Pope there centuries later, Charlie Parker to Birdland, Gorbachev to Glasnost, and seditious subjects of a far-away king to the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution.
Now I'm no flag-waver--I think that the US is neither the greatest nor worstest country on the face of the planet. But those are two of the most-important and best applied political tracts since Hammurabi's Code. Could they be written today, in our climate of fear?
Asia, and the third-world in general, is swarming with risks. They seep across the floor and up the sides of the walls. They exist in every motion, every step, every thought. In order to deal with risks in Asia, in order to manage risks, you must be able to accept and then ignore them.
There are cobras in-between you and the village. This is a fact as indisputable as gravity. Cobras. You've seen them slithering across the road. Yet you must go to the village.
The boat is a fire-trap, bereft of even a single life-jacket. Yet you must take the ride across the sea into the city on the shore.
That dog might have rabies. The chicken doesn't appear to have been cooked long-enough. Wasn't that fish sitting out in the sun? Are you sure this is safe? I think that there are too many damn people on here. That nail is rusty. Who knows where her hands have been? I don't see a notice from the health inspector. There's no soap in this bathroom. That one either. Are you sure this is safe? It looks poisonous to me. Maybe there's meat in there, I can't tell. Are you sure this is safe? Is that boatman coming towards us with a machete? You're sure? Why is he coming towards us with a machete? This is safe? He's definitely coming this way, should we run into the jungle? Are you absolutely, positively, one-hundred percent positive this is safe? He's coming right at us, what should we do? What should we do!
Oh. Heh-heh. He's just cutting bamboo.*
Are you sure this is safe?
Our reaction as a nation to 9-11 is a perfect example of this. Terrorism is a risk we cannot manage, try as we might. The very attempt to manage it seems bound to take us to totalitarianism. Totalitarianism being, of course, the logical end result (goal, even) of a 100% effective risk-management program. Everything must be controlled. Nothing can be left up to the individual. The individual must not be free to decide.
For he might decide not to wear his hard hat, or his helmet. She might decide not to wait 30 minutes after eating, or 24 hours after consuming any alcohol. They might, God forbid, decide to consume things or engage in unprotected behavior which is expressly prohibited and in doing so will, necessarily, render their policy null and void.
This is all well and good. We live to be painfully old in the developed, risk-free West. We live long past knowing we are alive. Past knowing who or what we are. Past caring.
We must take our medicine every day. Every day! To reduce the risk of heart disease.
But in the long run, this attitude is very bad for us. One need only head to the closest nursing home to see where decades of healthy living gets you.
Risk is both acceptable and good. We should neither be forced to or prohibited from taking risks, we should decide ourselves. Taking away people's ability to decide which risks are worth taking, worth managing themselves, is profoundly undemocratic. Worse, it makes us a weak people, afraid to take chances, horrified by the unknown.
It's far better to let nature, rather than policy, act as the ultimate arbitrator of risk management. If something is too risky, then it will kill you. We will all grieve and mourn and ultimately move on, pausing to remember you on your birthday, and maybe the anniversary of your death, and--oh, I don't know--let's say the second Wednesday of every month (because we loved you, dammit!). Furthermore, we will be far less-likely to engage in said risky behavior ourselves for reasons that have nothing whatsoever to do with policy.
When policy dictates all risks, it hinders our ability to discern between the acceptable and the unacceptable. We simply accept that it is prohibited because it is dangerous, without evaluating the risks ourselves. Thus when we butt up against something for which there is no policy, we are caught unaware, unable to decide. Too often this leads to fear, and the decision not to take any risks at all. To stay at home. To let National Geographic sort it all out for us. To watch it on TV.
But where will tomorrow's National Geographic cameraman come from, or tomorrow's Magellan or Albert Einstein? Where? The USA, or Thailand? Phoenix, or Beijing? Atlanta, or Delhi? This was a nation driven by risks, driven by adventurers, settled by people for whom the unknown was a fact of life. It was this spirit that propelled us past any other nation on Earth in terms of technology, learning, and political theory. We were the third-world, not so long ago.
While traveling, we went lots of places simply because they were unknown to us. It was a risk. But risks taken on creaky longtails with smoking engines to powerless places that the guidebooks don't really have too much to say about rewarded us with some of the most isolated, beautiful spots I have ever had the privilege to look upon. But when we took the safe, well-traveled, risk-free (or at least low-risk) routes, we always seemed to find a KFC waiting there for us at our destination.
Asia taught me to take risks again. To live unafraid of dirty bathrooms and unknown ingredients. I learned, again, that the greatest rewards come from letting go of my fears. Deciding which risks are worth taking and then putting my fate in the hands of God. I doubt that I will discover a new country, theory, or philosophy this way. But I might write a better book, or tell a better story. I will certainly have a better time.
All across Asia, we saw people riding motorcycles sans helmet. They'd put their kids in their laps, too, riding up front wedged between the set and the handlebars. One night in Bangkok, as we waited to cross Phra Arthit road, we saw a motorcycle pass by with a kid riding up front. Standing up on the moving bike. Hands in the air. With a plastic bag over his head. Grinning tremendously. I got $20 says that kid's going to be one of the first people to walk on Mars.
*based on actual events
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