You take a chance getting up in the morning, crossing the street or sticking your face in a fan. . .

Frank Drebin, human quote machine, and the source of the today's titular musings.


I've probably talked about this before, but you ever notice how much of our life is spent minimizing risk? I'm not talking about needless things like seatbelts (not that needless, actually) and school zone speed limits (honestly, just stay off the damn road. That's what I was told growing up. Look both ways and stay where you are.) But we have hand sanitizers at every building entrance, we have Lysol that can kill 99.9 % of germs ( yes, ALL germs are deadly and will probably eat your flesh at the first chance), we have insurance for EVERYTHING (apparently in Alberta your car has to be insured to operate it on the road. Go figure.)

All kidding aside, it bugs me that we are such safety freaks as a society. Maybe it's the only way for a large number of people to be living in such close quarters, but then maybe that's the issue right there. Regardless of whether or not you take the Genesis account of man's early history to be literal or figurative, or if you believe that some half ape descendant of a mammal fish reptile hybrid is your ancestor, it seems to me that cities (and the seeming safety they provide) are not necessary for humans to live, to really live.

If so, why the fascination with nature? Is there anyone who detests a garden? Anyone who despises the sun, the sky? Even good city planning allows for plenty of green spaces, because we all know how much we love them. And it's like we can handle nature provided we can tame it, maybe because we are trying so desperately to tame ourselves. We applaud people who are level headed, who are self controlled, and well we should. But that doesn't mean tame, docile, borderline narcoleptic.

I want to applaud more people who took a chance and failed. And I know how cliche this may sound, but the only real failure is not trying. So go ahead - dream big, take a chance, and if you fall flat on your face, well, I've been there, and it's a great place to start planning again.

There is nothing in my life that I (or others) would consider a failure that I would want to do over, because everything has made me who I am today. On the flip side, there ARE things I have yet to do that, should I fail to do them, I may always wonder "What if . . . ?"