Risk

When studying law and medicine at university there was a module on cause of death. A coroner presented slides of high velocity exit wounds, death by blunt trauma and asphyxiation . He was a cheery man which seemed a prerequisite for the line of work.He digressed from tales of personal catastrophe to dispense a bon mot - there is no such thing as a risk free life.

That stuck with me . If you trawl the information landfill of the web you are presented by one study/analysis after another of risk. If you go out of your door you are likely to be mugged. If you drive you are likely to be hit by a drunk driver. If you go to sample the simple (and free) pleasure of association in a public place you are likely to be atomised by a jihadi. Fear as control.

Instead you retreat to the security of your private space. You cannot make sense of the risk. You plug into the web and Tweet and Facebook your impotence and rage. Many smarter folk than the writer have theorised on control by media. Google (the irony ) Noam Chomsky or Adam Curtis.Why control ? Money I suppose. Until the banking apocalypse we had irrational exuberance spurred by greed and stupidity. Now we have irrational caution spurred by greed and stupidity.

 

I had a discussion at work with a mortgage company.They wanted me to quantify the risk of underground mining on a property. There is government legislation to compensate for subsidence but they wanted more. They wanted me to tell them all would be ok. Given this irrational caution I would assume there are no mortgaged properties in San Francisco. Modern life seems to consist of not relying on our senses . The world seems senseless or we lack common sense because we having nothing in common.

 

We went to a wildlife park last year. There was an enclosure with silverback gorillas . We christened the male Sid. We were told he had seen his parents slaughtered by poachers and had a healthy scepticism about Homo sapiens .On the glass surrounding his enclosure a note asked not to stand near the glass or use flash photo. So all spectators stood near the glass and used flash photo. This enraged the gorilla with the damaged psyche and a group to protect. After a few warnings he punched the steel and glass enclosure with such force it shook. I nervously scrutinised the glass for cracks. I wondered what his fist could do to a human frame.

 

Real risk would be getting in the enclosure with Sid the silverback. As you lie down in front of him and play dead you pray he shows the mercy our species has not shown him.