Risky Business

Skiing is Risky Business. We send ourselves down hill on a pair of boards and there are many obstacles and perils to overcome, and I am not talking about those who seek the near vertical steeps. However, facing the risky can lead to growth and learning the infant trying to stand up and walk risks falling and if we did not take that on where would all be?

Risk is an inherent part of life and we all learn quickly that we need to measure the risk and weigh the possible gains vs. the actual costs and the likelihood of failure given the situation.

I was watching some show this evening where a group of young men took a climb of the Shark Fin Meru and they conquered it (despite the expedition leader receiving near fatal head injuries about a year previous) and that was a risky proposition. One of the youths noted they are explorers in an explored world; that if born in the age of exploration they would have been on galleons crossing the oceans and hiking unknown continents. Sans the ocean floors the whole world is pretty much fully explored and there are no new lands, no new mountains to find, nada. Fact is, many of the early explorers took on the risk and paid the ultimate price, their bones would littler the world had they not turned to dust.

Evolution wired us to take risk, the thing is we all have our own areas of endeavor where we are willing to take risk. Some are willing to take physical risk skiing, some take it kayaking, some will take it in the offices of the world, risking their jobs and livelihood on some project, maybe even putting the livelihoods of hundreds perhaps thousands of others on the line.

So as long as there are nasty lines to ski or board young people will continue to die attempting to ski those lines and our species requires that, the moment home sapiens breed or drug risk taking out of our species is the moment we our species beings its slide to extinction.