Risky Business

I'd be interested to know whether people who know me, like, REALLY know me, would consider me to be a risk-taker.

I tend to fancy myself as a generally cautious individual, albeit stricken with fits of impulse that can only seem to outsiders (especially my mother) like reckless abandon, but what are really quite calculated and measured bursts of me saying "I simply can't take it any more, so sod off!" and then running off to cower behind any number of predefined hierarchical and conditionally-dependent backup plans.

The recent event of Quitting My Job, for example, actually was prefixed by three months of careful and private deliberation, discussion, and debate before it came to fruition, and only then was it actually swung into motion because a nice fat tax refund check that I haven't previously counted on showed up at my door. To those not in the know (i.e. Mama Finley) I'm sure the actual act of Quitting My Job seemed juvenile and delinquent and irresponsible, but I assure you, the yellow-lined paper with the Reasons For had considerably more black felt ink writing than the one with the Reasons Against.

Sure, I may get a little wild from time to time and fluff my couscous with a spoon rather than a fork, or sleep with the window open, or call in sick to work when I feel fine but just don't want to get up, but generally I'm cautious and careful and think things through before I do them.

That is, except when there is exhilaration to be had.

I have jumped out of an airplane for no other reason than to fall to the ground. I've ridden a sport motorcycle on public roads in excess of 140 miles per hour wearing a t-shirt and shorts. I only wear a helmet on my Harley because Virginia says I have to.

I can't, in fact, drive 65.

But I'm not a gambler. I don't drink and drive. I've somehow survived this long without contracting a sexually communicable disease. And I managed to save more than I spent in 2010.

Incongruous, no?

I was thinking about this today because (and I will spare you the thought train that led to this particular idea) I was getting on my my bike AND thinking about jet pilots and I was thinking that people (and by "people" I mean "the bad-ass 80's movie Top Gun") say that people like fighter pilots are addicted to risk-taking, so that's why all fighter pilots ride motorcycles. In fact, to hear some people talk about risk, you'd think that any moron stupid enough to ride a motorcycle should also be a destitute alcoholic gambler, unable and uncaring enough to pay child support for the 7 illegitimate children he's fathered with 8 different baby mommas.

Never once, in my 6 years and 30,000 miles of travelling on two wheels, have I ever considered motorcycle-riding to be akin to taking a risk. Maybe that's why I do it. And love it.

That is to say, I don't consider it to be any more a calculated risk than, say, the one I take every day by getting out of bed and into the shower. Or by falling asleep at night - what if I never wake up?

Holy shit. I just looked up "death statistics" on the internet. Want to know what the leading cause of death to Americans is? Heart Disease. That's right. HEART DISEASE. Nowhere on that list is "motorcycle accident" (although number 5 is "accidents" but that could just as easily mean "stabbing yourself in the eye with a knitting needle not on purpose).

I guess that everyone has a different definition of risk. Some people would never ever ride a motorcycle because it's too dangerous.

Personally, I think it's more dangerous not to live, than not to take risks...