Yes, it does. Without danger, infact, I do not have fun. For the past several years, increasingly, i’ve heard people say be safe. It’s nice, to an extent.
Okay. Without danger, there is no fun, there is no happy. If I am going down a boring river rapid which has no threats and no excitement, I do not feel fun. What about the rock climber ? Without some element of death defying grit, how can we even enjoy ourselves? Do we turn into self-enslaved autonomous robots who are always concerned with being safe? Yes, we do.
Safety is great, but without danger.. there is truly no enjoyment. Safety can limit the pleasure of human experience when it becomes stifling, dogmatic, authoritative or irreprehensible, which it has.
Many of us enjoy adrenaline. In a safety society, there is none of that. Yet how are we to get our kicks, when everyone is obsessed with being safe? Yes, there is a logic to it, but at what end? I’ve been hearing it for so incredibly long now. It got to the point that when people said be safe, I actually felt less safe, because I wasn’t even thinking about my own personal safety at that time.
Call me reckless, call it what you want. I have personally told people to be safe, and been rhetorted with ‘be dangerous’. I empathize with danger. I sympathize with safety. What matters more? You do the math. There of course, has to be a healthy balance, but in a society where safety gets in the way of personal experience, liberty, and freedom.. is it even a free an open society at all?
Let me go back to the ‘river’ ideology. I could go down rapids on my bum in a totally safe environment, but it’s not fun. Now, if the rapids become more dangerous and life threatening, they are more pervasive and threatening. That is fun. Are we just raising a generation of sissie-lah lah’s? Ahem, you do the math.
Do we even have good stories for our children if we are always being safe? Do we ever make mistakes which help us learn and discern if we are always being safe? Is safety itself stifling if it gets in the way of authentic human experience? I mean, is safety itself stifling if it gets in the way of genuinely experiencing your reality to the fullest? You do the math. We all love safety, but man.. safety cannot get in the way of us doing amazing things. Life threatening things which advance the human race. If people weren’t dangerous, epic stuff would not be done at all! What are you going to do the next time someone tells you to be safe?
Are they trying to suffocate the life out of experience itself?
Greg von Haesler 