safety
as a concept, you understand. (please imagine me with a wry grin.) I think I spent my childhood and adolescence disconnected from people. I think that's why I had to learn so much so fast in my twenties, and learn it from people I worked with, books I finally read that my university professors had recommended. and one of the things I learned was that normal people, or some people I thought were normal people, obsessed over safety. well, okay, not obsessed over it, but lived as if that were their goal. or at least talked as if that were what they lived for. they lived in safe houses, in safe neighborhoods, where their kids would go to safe schools. they drove safe cars and when they had a little more income, they bought safer cars. they took safe vacations. they saved. then they invested safely. it was an idea I could not grasp. didn't they know about stray bullets? meteorites striking people? lightning? tornadoes? cancer? in a world designed to kill you, where did they expect to find safety? in the suburbs? driving to work? mingling only with other people committed to safety? and what was the point? finishing your life with a smile and the thought "goddam! I never ever took a risk and no adventure ever dared touch me!"? like I said, I didn't understand. I rode a motorcycle. I walked out into the desert to see what was there. I climbed stone faces. I jumped down onto what I hoped was a soft surface. I walked out of or down from places I never should have gotten myself into. I can't say I had great adventures, but I think I had little adventures. I can't say I spent much of my life scared silly, but there were times and situations in my life in which a sane person probably would have been scared silly. I was just improbably confident that I could find a way out or down. and I did, up until I shattered my lower left leg in 2013 by dropping my Harley on it the second time in a year. no, I'm not encouraging anyone else to live like I did. but I wouldn't discourage anyone either. it takes a certain amount of humor, a lot of unlikely training, and I don't know what else to live that way. I've made it to nearly 74 (and can hardly believe that), and many of the people who told me about living safely aren't here to tell me about it now. but as a concept, as something I probably couldn't have done if I'd known how, I admire it. I don't understand, but I appreciate. belatedly. amusedly.
No comments:
Post a Comment