To laugh is to risk appearing a fool,
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
To reach out to another is to risk involvement,
To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self.
To place your ideas and dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss.
To love is to risk not being loved in return,
To live is to risk dying,
To hope is to risk despair,
To try is to risk failure.
But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.
The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing.
He may avoid suffering and sorrow,
But he cannot learn, feel, change, grow or live.
Chained by his servitude he is a slave who has forfeited all freedom.
Only a person who risks is free.”
― Leo F. Buscaglia
I completely disagree with this post;
Life doesn’t need a purpose, doesn’t have a purpose, it just is.
Personal growth doesn’t stop just because I might not be doing “things” that others expect a “normal” person to be doing.
Why would I want to continually risk the wounded heart and soul, and what little I have left from the failures of risk, when the entirety of experience has taught that loss & hurt is a guaranteed result. Didn’t someone say expecting different results from repeating the same things is the definition of insanity?
What’s the actual “hazard” of risking nothing (or as little as possible)?
Forfeited all freedom? Define freedom.
For example, chasing dreams has always cost me everything and never had a positive outcome, yet I constantly see people preaching that everyone should be chasing their dreams. Horrifying. That doesn’t mean I don’t value what I wasted in the process of chasing dreams, but I finally learnt my lesson once I stopped listening to peer pressure and media and followed my own sensibilities.
This whole post seems very narrow-minded old-school mentality, dripping with judgementalism.
And my disagreeing with it doesn’t necessarily make the posters experiences and perceptions wrong either. But preaching has to be done with great care. I surely am not preaching to never take risks, it’s up to the individual and their instincts as to what and how to risk. If anything, people need to be further educated on the risks of taking risks in any sense of the word (emotionally, financially, mentally, physically, etc).
I’m pondering this interesting post, “Appearing A Fool,” about taking risks. Ferlinghetti’s poem “Constantly Risking Absurdity” about high-wire acrobats and poets can easily be applied to the Romanian migrant worker and lover in the film “God’s Own Earth,” who risks everything to catch the other protagonist in this wonderful film about sex, love, and God’s own earth from plunging to self-destruction. “spreadeagled in the empty air/of exsistence” as Ferlinghetti memorably puts it. It also applies to all of us as we take risks about our sexual identities, or cruise for blow-jobs, or try to hook up with someone on Planet Romeo, or say “I love you” to someone who may reject us. Great idea for a post on this website, Mr. Cox. It’s all about risk, life that is.
Constantly Risking Absurdity (#15)
BY LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI
Constantly risking absurdity
and death
whenever he performs
above the heads
of his audience
the poet like an acrobat
climbs on rime
to a high wire of his own making
and balancing on eyebeams
above a sea of faces
paces his way
to the other side of day
performing entrechats
and sleight-of-foot tricks
and other high theatrics
and all without mistaking
any thing
for what it may not be
For he’s the super realist
who must perforce perceive
taut truth
before the taking of each stance or step
in his supposed advance
toward that still higher perch
where Beauty stands and waits
with gravity
to start her death-defying leap
And he
a little charleychaplin man
who may or may not catch
her fair eternal form
spreadeagled in the empty air
of existence