Four Questions To Consider When Dealing With Risk

I read Ben Carson's book Take The Risk back in November last year and my last post reminded me of Carson's thesis when considering risk. It was one of those amazing finds in airport bookstores that I sometimes am blessed with. I think it was on my way to Atlanta or on the way back that I found it. Very good read! I think Tony Dungee does the forward and hey any book on risk is bound to attract a danger addict like myself.
Carson is a neurologist who faces risks headlong everytime he operates - ever wonder how a brain surgeon deals with the life/death question with patients - read the book. Carson suggests these four questions to consider when dealing with risk:

What’s the best that can happen if i do this?

What’s the worst that can happen if i do this?

What’s the best that can happen if i don’t do this?

What’s the worst that can happen if i don’t do this?

Quote: Helen Keller on Security

"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. . .Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. . . Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."

- Helen Keller, deafblind American author, activist and lecturer

Quote a Three Year Old - Amazing Stuff!

Our little AJ has some amazing quotes: today she told me I should maybe close my laptop so it doesn't get dried up. "Don't get it all dried out daddy - because then you can't press things." I asked her why i wouldn't be able to press things & her response was, "Because God made it, painted it, cleans stuff for us too, and makes stuff for us, and papers for us to draw on, boots, Dora,..." I'm not sure how the two are connected.

Some Quotes Concerning Adventure:

"Remember what Bilbo used to say: It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to." - J. R. R. Tolkien

"It is only in adventure that some people succeed in knowing themselves - in finding themselves." - Andre Gide

"People travel to wonder at the height of the mountains, at the huge waves of the seas, at the long course of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars, and yet they pass by themselves without wondering." - St. Augustine

Quote: Mark Twain on the Secret of Getting Ahead

"The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one."

- Mark Twain, humorist and author (1835 - 1910)

King of the Mountain

"I've had a full and rewarding life. Life's a bit like mountaineering - never look down." - Sir Edmund Hillary (20 July 1919 - 11 January 2008)

Quote of the Evening

"Adventure is the invitation to common people to become uncommon." - Warren Miller

Birthdays Come & Go

So here I am 34. Yesterday another 24 hours went by marked by the remembrance of a birthdate March 9, 1973. I was born in the 70s how swanky & trippy is that - when music loud, proud, & birthed forms like disco, rock anthems, some really bad country, reggae, and of course punk (because rock n roll hadn't gotten too mainstream).

Then came the 80s - when neon lights determined the clothing (not sure where mesh, pleather, or acid wash came from) we wore, when hair got not only long but big & spiky thanks to hairspray (which we all know is what really is responsible for Global Warming & the hole in the ozone), thankfully we experienced U2 amidst the rebirth of pop crap music, some glimmers of hope in hard rock (VH), and of course Tom Petty! The 90s were marked for me personally by U2's Achtung Baby & Nirvana/Pearl Jam and other forms of alternative rock which eventually became mainstream, so in the 00s we've had to go back to New Wave, Punk, etc.

Music styles come and go - as do birthdays apparently. Thank God for Johnny Cash - who once said, "All music is God's music." The question I have is - what is music? I know Dylan, Cash, U2, Petty, & other greats belong in that category but there is a lot of undeserving dribble out there that claim they are worthy of titles like musicians.

So to mark my birthday - we (Wendy & yours truly) went out for some Italian food & came home to watch Stranger Than Fiction. Wow! From my perspective - best movie I've seen this year...amazing script, amazing acting (yep Will Ferrell can act in this one!), and amazing soundtrack (Spoon, etc)! I even uttered out loud my utter profundity at one scene - getting a poke in the ribs from my lovely wife (with child). So yeah - here's a shout out - see this movie if you have any love of quirky scripts that bite you back! Ironically, 34 sure doesn't feel a whole lot different from 33, just another number to quantify stuff. The bigger questions are what is this year going to bring, what adventures will I face, what will I learn & experience?

The Journey

Life clearly is a journey and at times not one easily traveled. It almost seems trite for me to have written that last sentence but it doesn't make it any less true. My high school graduating class chose the following proverb for our grad theme, "A journey of a 1000 miles must begin with a single step" - a quote by Lao Tzu.

And so, we journey on one step at a time; facing the challenges, the joys, the struggles of life. I've always enjoyed watching nature programs on channels like the Discovery Channel but it has often seemed that life for animals seems at times so hopeless. The classic series Trials of Life - reveal the savagery of primates in the jungle or hopeless swim of a seal pursued by a killer whale.

To me - it seems we have more purpose than simply being on a journey. Ultimately there is a destination but I don't think that is all there is to life either. Life is more than just dying and getting to Heaven. I think a big part of our purpose and existence has to do with our relationships with others, with the people we meet along our path. Life is about being a voice to others and somehow functioning as community, as fellow sojourners. Clearly that is counter to what much of the world says, after all life is all about my choices, my wants, my desires, my individuality - right?

What are our voices & actions saying to others? Are we able to step outside our own shoes and actually engage other people in real conversations? Are we being an encouragement to others or do we instead take away & steal the pride of others? Are we bearers of life or death?

We hear a lot of voices on our journey - some good, some bad, and yes to borrow a Clint Eastwood movie title & idiom - some just plain ugly! Living through Junior High (or puberty for that matter) is a lot like living as a chimpanzee in the jungle or a seal in a whale-infested sea. Survival of the fittest! Eat or be eaten. As someone involved in youth ministry for over a decade, I have seen a lot of hurting youth and some of them continue to feel the effect of this hurt into their young adulthood. They still bear the scars of hurt, of taunts, of mental & even carry some deep spiritual wounds. And many are still bleeding. Those voices still echo in their ears as adults - "you will fail, you are not good enough, you are ugly, you are stupid..." These words were never meant to be spoken, never mind heard or thought or believed.

It is time for each of us to be voices of healing, of hope, of love, of bringing people back from the dead. It is time to wake up and stop walking alone on this journey. Life is not just about me, myself or I! We need to stop living the lie we are fed in our public schools, on television, by our law courts, and governments that life is all about the individual and our rights. In reality life is about the human race & how we engage others in relationship on this planet we live on.

Musing My Way Into 2007

To muse or to contemplate can be a very positive thing. It is something that I've found valuable in sorting my thoughts and in exploring new ideas. At the start of a new year, many people create new year's resolutions - goals & ideals that hopefully will be fulfilled in the months ahead.

I don't mind setting goals but I've never been one to do "the list." Perhaps I'm just too random and spontaneous to sit down and do that? I've identified in the past my mission statement and I have a list of implications for my marriage, family, work, etc. It is something that I paste on my wall and refer to but I can't help but live that out!

But my guess is - resolutions are simpler tasks to accomplish than to live out your calling like a mission. Stuff like: exercising more & watching what you eat? My resolution is simple: keep being me! What does that mean? I seek to be: inspiring, curious, & creative; adventurous; God-led; an explorer of play & new ideas; a traveler; enthusiastically outdoorsy; a voracious reader; a loving husband & father; passionate & authentic in all I do; and to be someone who lives without regret!

"We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery" - Samuel Smiles

"Life can only be understood backward, but it must be lived forward" - Soren Kierkegaard

"Better to illuminate than merely to shine, to deliver to others contemplated truths than merely to contemplate" - Saint Thomas Aquinas

Exploration Quotes

Here are some interesting quotes to ponder & explore:

"We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started... and know the place for the first time" - T. S. Eliot

"In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration" - Ansel Adams

"Writing is an exploration. Your start from nothing and learn as you go" - E. L. Doctorow

A life without exploring from my perspective would be a boring one and I'd question whether "living" is actually occurring. If a person never breaks into a sweat or whose pulse never races, my guess is they've never stepped foot outdoors. This world is too amazing to not explore and experience! I try to live my life in a way that keeps pushing boundaries, learning new things, and stepping over the edge into full-on adventure!
My fear of heights has never stopped me from climbing and my love of the outdoors has brought me to glimpses of Eden that leave me wanting more! Part of the reason why I love photography as it allows me to capture those moments in part and provides me with another conduit for creativity!

Exploring Key Words

It took me a lot less time "key-wording" exploreplay thankfully than my musings blog. Here are the top seven topics for you to peruse if interested: mountain-biking, traveling, musings, photography, play, quotes, & skiing.

My Passion For Adventure Continues...

I've posted this before on this blog but it continues to inspire me daily and I thought why not share it again? I read Aron Ralston's book Between A Rock & A Hard Place a few years ago. It is a fascinating read into the mind of a fellow adventurer with the misfortune of becoming trapped in a slot canyon in outdoors mecca of Utah's canyonlands.

He ended up having to amputate his own arm to escape his six day entrapment beneath a shifted boulder. Ralston does not regret the choices he made in exploring that cabin and shares in the book that he is a better man for having gone through the experience. I think the story illustrates well the innate desire some of us have for adventure. Ralston quotes Jon Krakauer's book Into The Wild as being sort of a manifesto for his life:

"So many people live within unhappy circumstances & yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun."

This quote ties in well with my own lifestyle choices and perhaps explains my desire to mountain bike even during hunting season. Since my days as an adolescent I've been an adventure-seeker and it has resulted in a few mishaps & close-calls in my day but I have no regrets because I have lived a full life.

Escape

To escape is to seek freedom from capture. What are the things which hold us, which prevent us from being being free? When we seek escape, it seems we are also seeking refuge. So it is not only the "slipping away" that is our concern but our destination. I love playing with words and exploring their meaning in whatever the context. This diversion called a blog, is in someway an escape. A way of allowing my thoughts escape and find refuge in a netherworld of electronic reality.

When I find escape in sport, I seek the freedom of using my body to its potential. Whether it is rhythmic pedal up a steep hill or the screaming descent into an unknown valley - it is freedom I am pursuing. Freedom from worry, from stress, from the doldrums of life. When I kiss the lips of my beloved - I am finding refuge. When I strum my guitar, when I embrace my wife & kids, when I snap a portrait, when I inhale a sunset, when I dive into the ocean, when I find a place of beauty I've never been before, when I zig zag down a powderey slope, when I surf the perfect wave, when I find the perfect melody, when I find paradise...I have escaped and explored play to its fullest.


One of my favorite quotes of Jesus states, "I have come to bring life and to bring it abundantly." Living life to the fullest - that should be what we explore, what we escape to, what we immerse ourselves into! To live without regret...

Movie Quote

Every now and then, I've had the pleasure of enjoying the classic movie of the 80's - Ferris Bueller. Here's one of my favorite quotes from the movie:

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." - Bueller

Latest Explore Pics

Spring has arrived, along with phenomenal weather, rising waters back in Riverside, and yes the frogs are announcing it all to the world:

This picture for whatever reason reminded me of Annie Dillard's description of a frog she discovered that didn't jump. A giant water bug was sucking out the dissolved contents of its victim from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek:

He was a very small frog with wide, dull eyes. And just as I looked at him,he slowly crumpled and began to sag. The spirit vanished from his eyes as if snuffed. His skin emptied and drooped; his very skull seemed to collapse and settle like a kicked tent. He was shrinking before my eyes like a deflating football. I watched the taut, glistening skin on his shoulders ruck, and rumple, and fall. Soon, part of his skin, formless as a pricked balloon, lay in floating folds like bright scum on top of the water: it was a monstrous and terrifying thing. I gaped bewildered, appalled. An oval shadow hung in the water behind the drained frog; then the shadow glided away. The frog skin bag started to sink...

This past weekend we spent some time at Star Lake with Wen's side of the family. It was an amazing weekend complete with 20 degree weather and bright sunny weather. I got a great 30 km ride in at Ingolf on Saturday despite the horror of witnessing the after effects some of the clear cutting of the forest that decimated the first few kms of the trail. I didn't take any pics of myself riding but I managed to get a few shots in capturing the aura of a sunset at Star Lake...

I have no idea what these lakeside blossomed shrubs are but they were absolutely scarlet in the dying sun's rays at dusk...enjoy! Check out more pics from the past few weeks at musings.

Road Trip Quote

I read Donald Miller's Through Painted Deserts a few months ago and really enjoyed it. It's a road trip memoir about three months spent crossing the U.S. in a VW camping van. Something I'd really like to do someday. It actually reminded me a bit of my family travelling in our van back in the 80's on one of our many family trips. We actually ironically drove through the Painted Desert and explored the edge of the Grand Canyon. Miller's book brought me back in time and forced me to imagine future travel. Here's a random quote that caught my eye:

"Rarely do I question the mystery of it all. We are atoms connected to create big, awkward, intelligent animals, animals complex in construction, equipped with minds, hearts, and the like. Spinning secretly around us in an intricate system of interconnected physical laws, completely dependent upon one another for effectiveness. And we are in the middle of it; actor's on Shakespeare's stage, madmen in Nietzsche's streets, accidents in Sagan's universe, children in God's creation...On one of our trips to central Texas, I stood at the top of a desert hill and looked up into the endlessness of the heavens, deep into the inky blackness of the cosmos, those billion stars seeming to fall through the void from nowhere to nowhere. I stood there for twenty minutes, and as it had a few times that year, my mind fell across the question why?" - D. Miller

Here's to stepping into mystery and road-trips in a VW camper van!

The Starbucks Journals - Final Episode 03.08.06

Life is too short to not pursue one's dreams. Sometimes we forget those aspirations in the midst of the busyness of our lives; our imagination goes flat and falls into atrophy. We need to keep being in wonder and in play. I can't say I have any legitimate regrets in response to things I've done over the years. I've accomplished a lot of my life goals and quite honestly am at a point where i need to create new ones as a result - that's pretty wild! In fact, I have done more and experienced life more fully than I ever thought I would as an adolescent. But just because I have led a full life means that I am satisfied and can hang up my Indiana Jones hat. There are som many more places left to explore and new dreams to dream. As my pen writes this garbled script of letters and words, I cannot help but thank my Creator for allowing me to be creative in all that I do!

Education - the pursuit of wisdom, understanding, & knowledge. They are the three peaks that as a guide I am encouraging my students to climb and pursue. The three are inexplicably linked together and to pursue only one is simply not enough. I know people who are masters of memorization and store incredible facts in there brains but that knowledge is of no value without understanding. Wisdom is knowing what to do with that knowledge and understanding, making right decisions at the right time. All three unique but incomplete with the other - sort of like love, hope, & faith.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder the poets say. The feeling of being apart from those you love clearly is not easy. I feel like getting in my rental van and driving how as I sit here missing home, my wife and daughters. We belong together. It's better when we are together in the words of Jack Johnson:

"Love is the answer, at least for most of the questions in my heart. Why are we here and where do we go and how come it's so hard? It's not always easy and sometimes life can be deceiving. I'll tell you one thing it's always better when we're together."

Tomorrow I'm no longer homeless and yes it will be better to be together!

Passion For Adventure Quote

While posting on my friend Dave's Squarefoot Blog in response to Seeking Adventure this interesting quote from Jon Krakauer's book Into The Wild came to me:

"So many people live within unhappy circumstances & yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun."

Aron Ralston author of Between A Rock & A Hard Place (the guy who had to amputate his own arm after a boulder shifted on it while canyoneering) uses this quote as a manifesto for his life and it is one that I continue to process. I think the second week of exploreplay I used this quote for a blogpost but I find it helpful to revisit ideas or posts. Any thoughts out there?

New Word For The Day

Genuinity - something that has the quality of genuinity is understood to be real--not a fake. I think the word authenticity is overly used in our day and age, so I propose that we make use of this word as it refers to something having integrity, genuiness, & credibility.