Aliveness, Rashness and Stupid Risks
Featuring Damage Reports
I just tripped and fell over. Hit my head. I was hanging up the last piece of origami when my balance failed me and the footstool wobbled over. I fell and smashed my head into the side of my bed. My first instinct was a good one. I calmly petted my head, trying to feel the extent of the damage.
Satisfied that everything was still in place, I got back up (!) on the footstool and put the final piece of origami in place. Then I noticed that the head-smack had broken my bed, and spent a few moments trying to fix it.
Once finished with the important things (?), I went online to look up the symptom/care recommendations for concussions. Satisfied I was at low risk, I noticed I was bleeding. At this point, I recalled swelling can be annoying, so I went and put some ice/tissue on the damaged spot.
I give myself a score of 3/5 for this chain of events.
The Positives
I didn’t make a big deal out of the accident. Many would likely have complained, cursed or treated it as something negative. Having trained myself to navigate life in accordance with Stoic Philosophy, the event barely registered as bad. Pain and bodily health are externals — generally, I’m happy I don’t make a fuzz over things like smacked heads, spilt drinks, broken belongings or stubbed toes.
I could have been more careful, but a part of me prioritises feeling alive. It loves being rash — making quick decisions, taking risks, going for things and acting with abandon. This spontaneous life-joy has taken me on many adventures, cutting down the time it takes to start new projects.1
My favourite principle in life is “don’t wait for things to get better”. Acting quickly when I’ve decided to do something has mostly served me well, it’s a wonderful recipe for enthusiasm and flow.
The Downsides
This time, I got myself a gentle smack on the head. In the past, things have gone way worse.
I remember one time when I went looking for mushrooms to pick. The forest was barren — I was looking in vain. I came across a shallow stream of water, and thought to myself: “let’s grab a sturdy stick for balance, and nimbly leap over the stream”.
The moment I leapt, the stick snapped. I was left with one leg on either side of the stream, devoid of momentum. Stuck in this precarious situation, I realized I wore newly acquired shoes. The shoes were very white, and I didn’t want to get them dirty.
When extracting myself from this predicament, I paid too much heed to the pristine condition of my footwear and neglected to consider my anatomical restrictions. I fell down, twisting my knee with a crunchy “pop”, and lay groaning. After some time, I limped out of the creek, reaching cellphone coverage by struggling my way forward. I called my partner.
My partner assisted me back home, where I rested for the evening. I went to work the next day (!), even though my leg was barely functional. I limped my way to a lunch restaurant, getting concerned comments from colleagues. I waved away their concern and told them I would be fine given a few days of rest.
Ha! As I wandered back to the office, I crossed an empty road while looking at my phone. Unused to my reduced mobility, I didn’t consider the risk of cars appearing during my traversal.
A loud *HONK* brought me out of my bubble, scaring me enough to make me jump to the side. My knee, being in a sub-optimal condition, couldn’t deal with this unexpected turn of events. It gave out, flopping me down on the road in front of the car. Stunned, I crawled to the sidewalk.
The car drove away, very fast. I can relate. A crowd of angry people gathered, one handing me an illegible note supposedly containing the car’s license plate number. Another drove me to the closest emergency ward, where I got a belated examination.
Turns out I’d snapped my ACL, and punctured my meniscii. My knee was fucked. I got surgery, a 3-month sweaty knee brace, and spent 6 months doing daily rehab.
I give myself a score of 1/5 for this chain of events.
Analysis
I have hopes that I will be able to live for a very long time. I’m talking tech-assisted extended lifespan, transhumanist-style. Inspired by my roommate, I have started eating healthier, optimizing for longevity.
My roommate is very risk-averse, taking steps to reduce accidents. I am not risk averse. I often trade short-term gain for increased risk. I sometimes seek risk, looking for aliveness. Neuroticism is problematic when it leads to anxiety, but I might be at suboptimally low levels.2
This is a problem. My instincts are optimized for the sake of my genes — as long as my ancestors reproduced, the genes didn’t mind. In my ancestral environment, there were dangers all around. Hanging up origami or jumping creeks are unlikely to add enough risk to make a mark on my instincts.
I’m lucky the severe accident wasn’t head-related like the recent mishap. Very few young people die due to falling off chairs, but the risk is non-zero. I want to live to see what happens in the future, and feel motivated to reduce the kinds of risks that might end up killing me.
I think the Stoic practice of negative visualisation can be helpful here. I’ll imagine worst-case scenarios (what if the bed was sturdier?), as a way to make actual risks stand out to me. Maybe that will make me more attuned to risks?
I also hope that my roommate will influence me to be more risk-averse, where it matters. Hopefully, this will help offset some of my foolishness.
Here is a list of substack posts on related topics:
P.S: My philosophical guidance practice is growing! People are generally very happy, and I love supporting others in introspective philosophical inquiries. If you have an important problem you struggle to make sense of, I’d love to inquire with you. If you are unsure whether your problem is a good fit, please send me a message :)
Here’s what one of my clients says about my practice:
“I’m deeply grateful for and impressed by Jonathan’s creative, diligent, and highly attuned philosophical guidance practice. I feel like I am in the presence of a blunt-yet-kind, wise friend who’s known me for years and has the exact advice I need to hear - except Jonathan has never prescribed any advice.
Rather, through his keen ability to help me map out my thought patterns and sensitize to their emotional and energetic contours, Jonathan helps my worlds of confusion, looping, stuckness, and confinement become traversable expanded landscapes where I find myself reoriented by the compass of value and vision I’m attempting to hold at this moment in my life.”
When thinking about examples, my former collective comes up — I moved in a month after I got the idea. I launched my philosophical guidance practice over an intense weekend. Also, I’m living with a friend — we started talking about coliving early one morning, and decided to go for it later that afternoon.
except when investing - I’m all about dem passive index funds