Belly Button Lint

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Tag: risk

  • Theme:

    confidence over uncertainty

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    1–2 minutes

    While uncertainty is a hallmark of rational thought, people and institutions crave bold confidence and decisive action.
    Socially, the repercussions of slowing down, pondering, and thinking are seen as indecisive and wishy-washy, which undermines the authority of a leader.

    Making wise decisions requires time, and quality forecasting involves information. Which leaders cannot afford lest they lose their leadership.

    Unfortunately, humans persistently promote hubristic myopia because we cannot cope with indeterminacy.

    (“Acting on pretend knowledge is often the preferred solution.” Dr. Daniel Kahneman, Thinking Fast, and Slow)

  • Theme:

    Stability Depends on Prediction

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    1–2 minutes

    If you know the past and the present, your chances of predicting the future are strong.

    However, when you don’t understand the past, and the present is chaotic, why would you -metaphorically- till your fields or build new things? Why make a long-term consistent effort?

    You may be equally well off speculating if no sense can be made of the world: it is all risk and chaos.

    Choosing to labor without high odds of success versus not laboring with an equal likelihood of success proves the creator insane to toil in times of upheaval.

    Some people reduce the world. Logically, their frivolity makes sense, yet the absurdity of the creator will be the ones building our future, even as the gambler leeches from productive men and machines.

    As well, there will be some who do neither: neither risk nor build, but remain frozen, perhaps intellectually dense and action sparse, abiding in the currents.

  • Theme:

    Pessimism promotes optimism

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    1–2 minutes

    Any movement forces you to encounter the world and incur risk, which is to see the world as a trap. However, to remain still is to rot internally.

    Knowing one outcome is always negative (standing still) means any movement has a better chance of success, and thus you are propelled from pessimism into optimism.

  • Theme:

    Luck: to celebrate or hide?

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    1–2 minutes

    we privilege, specific traits: being beautiful, smart, or athletic. Every society will value specific genetic traits. When being born with them, especially with two or more, it is like being a superhero.

    These traits should be celebrated, as the individual can be seen as a model for what’s possible, and equally, the gifted should be humbled by recognizing their luck.

    A problem develops when someone is born with a gift, and yet must subvert or hide it in order to avoid jealousy. It speaks of a twisted society that would allow such small-minded persecution.

  • Theme:

    Procrastination is pleasure in pain

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    1–2 minutes

    While we can easily break our day into chunks to manage it, the procrastinator requires more pain to invoke discipline.
    They trade the current moment as stolen joy from a future burden, eventually pinned under the stress and anxiety of "too late."
    Procrastinating seems akin to the thrill of gambling: risking loss as a means to generate excitement and challenge, and of course, the commensurate charge if you "pull it off."

  • Theme:

    Taking risks is necessary to feel good

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    1–2 minutes

    Staying silent and non-reactive will never allow you to shine, challenge yourself, or try something new.
    Without risk, you will never be able to feel good or accomplished because not only will no one else know what you’re capable of, but neither will you.

  • Theme:

    The lucky wealthy vs the meritorious wealthy

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    1–2 minutes

    When you become wealthy you can claim it as merit or luck. If you become too wealthy you become separate and must attribute it to something: the meritorious lean into hard-nosed grit, while the lucky become progressive altruists.

    However, neither will give up wealth to re-test their political ideology.

    The lucky realize the odds and mouth platitudes to alleviate guilt, while the meritorious secretly realize their luck but have tied their identity to competence.

  • Theme:

    Sacred to Scared

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    1–2 minutes

    “The people there are only there to make money, so we went home before sundown.”
    A direct quote from a friend who went to Tulum, Mexico, where the sacred is commoditized until the tourists are scared.

  • Theme:

    Certainty is boring

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    1–2 minutes

    We all primarily want certainty until we have it. Then, bored out of your mind, you start disrupting your stability.
    Uncertainty, mystery, and danger are the spice of life.
    Much like a child learning to explore, we constantly gravitate back home for safety, build up our courage, and go adventuring again.

  • Theme:

    Potential: the vitality of the unknown

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    1–2 minutes

    When we are young, our potential is abundant. We channel our shiny-eyed, optimistic life energy into opportunities.
    Most opportunities foreclose who we are, solidifying how we fit into the world.
    Over time we trade fortuity for stability, scheduling manufactured excitements and working hard to rob ourselves of the vitality of the unknown.