RISK TAKING "Heading into the millennium, America has embarked on a national orgy of thrill seeking and risk taking."
Is everyday life too dull? Why else would Americans seek risk as never seen before?
(Greenfield, Karl Taro. "Life on the Edge." Time Sept. 1999: 29-36)
Some say that you don't realize life until you come close to death. I think this isn't too far off when we are looking at the answer to why so many people seek risk in their lives. In order to value the life some people need to come close to death, feel it, taste it, take a breath not knowing if it is their last. In essence this is the only way for them to fully understand the life they have. The desire is not only to live but to be able tell about it as a survivor. Everyone wants to be a survivor. People want to raise a chin to the sky and feel glory.
We no longer have to struggle to survive. We don't have to fight for our means. There is no reason to go out into the wild looking for our needs to survive, we don't' hunt for our dinner, or search for shelter. These are things that are now inherent in our life. Everything we need physically is within reach. The struggles of today are minor in comparison to those of our ancestors and those of other social groups who fight every day for their survival. For middle class Americans a good life of comforts is within reach.
"The extended period of prosperity has encouraged people to behave in ways they didn't behave in other times."(Time) The way people spend their money, the things they do with their free time and their overall view of life has undergone a transformation away from those of previous generations. "Previous generations didn't need to seek out risk, it showed up uninvited and regularly".(Time) The generations of the past didn't seek out risk because they saw risk in their everyday lives. They were faced with obstacles unimaginable to the generations of today. Young men went to war, caught in a line of fire, fought for their survival. Women fought for their basic rights to be human. The generations of today don't feel challenged in the same way. The risks inherent in the lives of the turbulent developing past don't exist in the present. Many of the risks that people engage in today are created out of this desire to discover oneself. "We engage in risks our parent would have shunned and our grandparents would have dismissed as just plain stupid."(Time)
Today a paraglider steps off of a cliff leaving safety behind, a life in limbo, fate out of hands, future out of mind, the immediacy and the intensity of the moment is all that is known. For many people life is a conception of the present moment. The present is betwixt and in between, a threshold to cross over. There are no clear-cut definitions, nothing to hold onto or fully grasp. Fragments of the past and ideas about the future
There is a depletion of values on the part of our culture. We have a lot of security and comforts in our lives, but very little recognizable control or connection. There is no stability in our families or our work. Our lives our lacking the values that we once held close to us, people are discontented and seeking out something to satisfy themselves.
We are risking our lives not for a loved-one or a country, we our risking our lives for ourselves. The modern man has become a man in search of himself. We are taking risks that many would have never dreamed of, risks that were never before possible, risks that have gone to a level of extremes as they have advanced with modernity and technology of our time. We are taking greater risks with our money than any generation in American History. Social behavior has tilted towards treacherous crime and drugs. There are so many discontented, unsettled and dissatisfied with the quality of life, from our political systems to our love lives.
How can we explain it? What do the world's philosophers tell us? Have you gone a pilgrimage or walked a line of fire? Have you lived to tell the story?
