Risk

First things first: the puppy’s room smells strongly of cheese and I have no idea why. There will be much laundry washed today in search of said odor, and a lot of curiosity as to where the hell that came from.

I’ve been thinking quite a lot recently about risk. This thinking comes in the context of both interpersonal relationships, professional liability, and the heightened and polarized world we live in where there are many chances to evade consequences for the risks people took. Usually those people are engaging in what I call Cowboy Risk. It’s a combination of disregard for authority, the thrill of risk-taking, and defiance. Sometimes it comes from financial desperation, which is that saddest version, and categorized differently from Cowboy Risk. Those risks emerge from being caught in a system, financial or otherwise, that requires risks to health, livelihood and reputation. That is more akin to oppression than risk of any type.

Cowboy Risk in the context of contracting are people who work without PPE, who disregard safety regulations, and who work either without insurance or without following labor laws. Someone told me recently that my unwillingness to work without insurance was simply a difference in risk tolerance. This to me sounds absurd. The difference in working with insurance and working without insurance in construction can be dismemberment or death with no recourse and potential legal liabilities that will bankrupt you. Meanwhile, you can pay $200-500/month for appropriate insurance (and that insurance is the bare minimum of cooperating with city, state, federal and NGO partners) and avoid any of that risk through a literal actuarial table. That’s not risk tolerance, that’s stupidity. It can be stupidity out of desperation or ignorance, but that is Cowboy Risk, through and through.

One of the things I’ve been labeled in my past lives is risk-averse. I absolutely reject this label because it generally applies only to Cowboy Risk. This kind of Cowboy Risk in real life can be anything from letting a dog without good recall off a leash to owning a cell phone for use in emergencies even if you reject Big Tech. It can be starting a project without appropriate PPE because you don’t believe a chemical to be as harmful as it is. It can also be playing fast and loose with people’s feelings because you cannot be bothered to think about whether that relational risk is worth it.

There’s a second form of risk, however, and it’s this other risk - the Real Risk of Loss - that demands a courage that is in short supply. This kind of risk-taking is a form of risk-taking I respect. It can be quitting a job without a future job. It can be leaving a relationship of any sort without knowing whether you will find a specific quality from those relationships ever again. It can be demanding a kind of behavior from someone knowing that that person will resist: resist emotional engagement, resist your request, or resist changing. It can also be sharing resources when you yourself have few. It can be financial risk that is calculated: I once bought stock in a solar power company that later went belly-up. My shares only totaled $30, but with a larger company I could have risked more. I bought that stock out of conviction: that investors need to put money into clean energy especially in a political context where global warming is denied. I was willing to take the risk.

The primary emphasis of Real Risk of Loss is on the potential for loss: real risks can damage relationships and people’s lives. Not because the intent of this risk is to cause damage, but because actually risking something real requires risking something you desire to keep: your money, your relationships, your lifestyle, your behavior. Cowboy Risk can incur these losses, but that is not primary: the primary motivation of Cowboy Risk is thrill or novelty or escaping consequences and responsibilities.