Risk

We want to engage with the public because we want to expand our capacity of dealing with risk. We live inside a template. This template suggests a range of social relations, a pattern of social interactions and behavioral norms that become constraints rather than conditions. To discover anything new, we have to break these norms. But, what is this risk that we want to deal with? Risk is always the barrier that stands between us and the new pattern of sociality that can disrupt our lives. This possibility of this disruption hides behind it the unknown. The unknown is such that we cannot talk about it. If we managed to figure how to talk about it, we would know it. And we don't. And the only way we can get to know this is by taking this risk .

This risk can only be taken by modelling a new possibility.

What does this act of modelling involve? Within the landscape of this operation, what is difficult? What is illogical? This difficult and illogical imagination is the objective of the risk-taking. Every act of speculation is risky. But every act of speculation is also profitable. Risk is rewarding.

And often in a game, it is possible to move forward only by taking a risk. If you want to play the game safely you might ensure your survival but not make any substantial gains.

But there is also a punishment. The biggest punishment that a risky situation can warn of is the weariness of having to deal with the memory of failure.

Choosing between this reward and punishment is mediated by the stakes of the choice. The stakes are not always high and sometimes it is easier to take a risk and lose. And at other times losing is not a choice. Victory and loss are only questions of achieving desired results. Of having an idea of a possible desired result at all. Such an idea can and does in fact sabotage projects. Risk becomes enjoyable to take only when it is like jumping off a cliff and not knowing whether there is cushion of thick clouds that are waiting to break the fall or not.

Believing either supposition is not going to matter. Death is certain when you jump off a cliff. But what is your closing thought? What is the flavour of the final moment? That is the point.

And that takes us closer to the most viable position that we can possibly take. We can speculate and possibly also reap the reward but only if we are ready to face the punishment of failure. We can live only if we agree to die.

But what should we do? What should we place our bets on? If breaking the mould of the bind that society has worked itself into is the objective then we should take comfort in the fact that nothing is ever going to happen. We need to reduce the potentiality of our actions else we will never do anything or at least never find anything we do exciting.

It is only the narrative of history that can map the crossed and complex pathways of events and their results. And history is always processed too late and in too shallow a manner. We can be blindly instinctive because it matters and it doesn't at the same time. Before we remember what it is we did, we have to forget why we did it. Prescription is boring but also parsing lectures is impossible.