“Now it was serious: a double-dog-dare. What else was there but a triple dare you? And then, the coup de grace of all dares, the sinister triple-dog-dare.” – A Christmas Story
Which is more daring, a pebble or a stick? The pebble: it’s a little boulder.
Almost 2,500 years ago, Thucydides said, “luck favors the daring.” Thucydides is dead, so, really, what did he know anyway? But part of being young is being daring – it’s on the label. There are so many things that you know, especially things that aren’t so. Life hasn’t yet given you curve balls and unexpected experiences
The lessons that you can learn from unexpected experiences can be helpful ones. The first lesson I was ever taught in high school chemistry lab was: “cold glass looks exactly like hot glass.” The second lesson was “never trust a naked man selling slightly used sulfuric acid, you can never tell where the acid has been.”
But the biggest loss is when we let one bad experience create fear in our lives. Let me explain: One time when we were getting firewood back when we lived in Alaska, Five Year Old The Boy was tromping in the forest. While jumping up and down on a little hill (five year old kids do that), The Boy managed to stir up a group of wasps that had burrowed into the ground there. All of them, and I mean all of them, came out of the nest and swarmed The Boy like Japanese jets on Godzilla©, all while The Boy flapped his arms like Greta Thunberg™ on tweaking on meth.
I would pay money to watch Greta in Marine boot camp – I’m sure the D.I. would nicely tell her, “As soon as you’re done getting your beauty sleep, princess, GET OFF OF MY OBSTACLE COURSE!”
After The Boy yelled “How dare you!” at the wasps, they left, because that technique always works. The Mrs. and I calmed him down, and treated the bites. The experience, however, was enough that The Boy was pretty scared of wasps – and there were a lot of them in Fairbanks that year.
So, one day after we had moved to Texas, we were in the backyard and just like in a cartoon, a beautiful butterfly had flown right up to The Boy.
“What is it?” There were butterflies in Alaska, but none that was as amazing as this one.
“It’s a butterfly,” I responded. His eyes lit up as he smiled at the colorful, delicate wings. “They bite,” I added. I had, of course, forgotten about The Boy being surrounded by wasps like ice weasels on a cheese wheel. The Boy had not.
The Boy ran into the house, screaming. The Mrs., who had observed every second, was not pleased.
Yes. This really happened. I made my son run screaming from a butterfly, so you know I had “Father of the Year” pretty much in the bag after that back in 2007.
SJW means Social Justice Wasp? Hmm. Wasps have about the same temperament as Antifa©, but at least the wasps have jobs.
But there are many things in life where the first experience wasn’t great, but like The Boy’s fear of butterflies, you’ve learned the wrong lesson if you avoid butterflies because of wasps. Mark Twain said it well:
We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it and stop there lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove lid again and that is well, but also she will never sit on a cold one anymore.
Twain had to work out – he was constantly on the run later on in his life after assassinating Abraham Lincoln. He also never wore shirts – he didn’t believe in concealed weapons.
Receivers in the game of football have to have a short memory – after coming across the middle, being hit by a linebacker at a combined velocity of 40 miles per hour, you’d never run another route again if you kept that in mind. They even have a phrase that describes receivers who are jittery – they say they are “hearing footsteps” – they’re more concerned about being hit than playing the game.
And me – I had to have a short memory as well. I’ve heard that Samuel Johnson said that a second marriage “is the triumph of hope over experience,” and that’s right. It is. And if I had spent too much time overthinking it? I’d never have married The Mrs.
Hmm. Dr. Lechter Says. New feature?
I think the key is optimism and a sense of confidence that the future will be okay. I think that’s why older folks sometimes stop taking risks – they’ve had such a large number of experiences that they can see sixteen ways something that can go wrong. A teenager learning to drive, however, sees no way to lose. It’s only after experience that caution comes into play.
When was the last time you gave up an opportunity because you felt that it was too risky? When was the last time you decided not to take a vacation because the last one was bad? The minute you stop living in your life, taking risks, and knowing that the future will take care of itself, you’re dead even if you’re still breathing.
I think that most of the mistakes people make is in not being bold enough. There is an advantage to trying, especially trying things you don’t know how to do. Mark Twain said it well:
There are some things that can beat smartness and foresight. Awkwardness and stupidity can. The best swordsman in the world doesn’t need to fear the second best swordsman in the world. No, the person for him to be afraid of is some ignorant antagonist who has never had a sword in his hand before. He doesn’t do the thing he ought to do, and so the expert isn’t prepared for him. He does the thing he ought not to do and often it catches the expert out and ends him on the spot.
So, in your life, you have one shot. Do you want to regret not doing something in twenty years? Come on – join me. Convince all the grade school kids that butterflies bite. Bonus points if you convince them that butterflies produce deadly poisons*.
This may be the most Australian picture ever, but I’ll defer to Adam (LINK) and Tom (LINK).
*Not applicable in Australia, where literally everything wants to kill you, and even ladybugs can leap seven feet and have venom-tipped spikes for legs.
Bonus unrelated content – JP on Epstein:
