Deep Risk Analysis; Covid 19 Risks

“Risk” and I bet you went to our recent outbreak. Maybe in the notion of risk you went to your favorite phobia. Fear was risk to you. Risk meant fear to you. Here we are fruitcakes of the risk taking variety. We gravitate toward risk and therefor our fears. Believe it or not there are risk junkies and I have an itty biddy degree in Risk Management. That is funny. Don’t get rid of the risk, manage it.

For sure I have an associate’s degree in risk management and some insurance deal license thing around here some place. That sense is how to stop theft from both in and out of a “corporate structure” down to a car repair loner. Target type stores and we are talking millions of “spoilage” losses per month. The risk prevention is more than a billion dollar a year industry.

Flash over to wonderful times in a places called Baja Mar, Baja Norte California, Mexico and Cu Chi Saigon, Vietnam. How fun. Or maybe Seoul or the Boca Raton. OK so I demand to eat from street carts or the like. I have no common sense and the idea that an ice cold beer cleans all manner of stuff works for me. I have never gotten sick by a street vendor’s food. However…. Once my father-in-law jumped and demanded no ice in the drink. Another time a buddy pointed out rewashing of straws. Yikes! To me the risk analysis said “eat boy and live la vida loca”. Maybe I should have cut back on drinking earlier in life.

Are we getting to the risks about Covid 19? Absolutely and I like it. What risk am I willing to take I ask. I learned a long time ago that when I take risks and it goes badly other people suffer. Fair enough and enough not to take risks? So I spent a good deal of time distancing myself from people so they would not give a damn about me. Fine work if you can get it and do alright alone in this world. Later on I realized that alienation and loneliness was a risk I no longer wanted to take. So back off on cliff jumping and skiing 80 miles per hour. Not good for those who love you.

See where we are going? Because I do not.

Risk. I like it although I basically have a life without it. So I do things like climb cliffs and what am I thinking? Picking up the clarinet after 50 years? And I publish this stuff. Risk of rejection is as scary as can be. Oh but what about getting sick? Doing things to avoid the risk of getting sick just makes logical sense. Especially when your sick can be given by you to another who wants no risk at all.

“Toxic people” is a great notion. I have never practiced staying away from them. I get the idea but they have never bothered me. Sure I might talk smack to them or even about them but I take the risk of being around them. Probably most people would accept the proposition that they are like infectious. And merely being around them you could catch it from them. Maybe I am immune or maybe I just don’t notice that I have been affected. Note above I include talking about them, a toxic quality. So not all risk of infection is of the viral or bacterial kind.

Hey now don’t be all said there are two type of infectious that are cool. Yawning is too fun. My wife yawns and within minutes or even seconds I yawn. Something to do with empathy and sympathy I understand. Oops, just writing about it made me yawn – really.

And the best infectious of all is laughing. You need some kind of treatment for a disorder if you can be around laughing people and not laugh. I would not agree that that is normal. Laughing alone is fun but nothing like laughing “with” someone else. I like being the center of attention so laughing at me is just AOK with me. But if you want to act all made up inside of you, do not approach happy loving people, the risk of infection is just too high.

I am of the opinion that love is infectious and that we are all infected. But some folks don’t want the risk of heartache and so the avoid it or demand to be asymptomatic. I think we have to accept that at least for someone going through a rough patch. But we must still take the risk in our hearts to try and infect them.

Hey is the word infectious always about something bad, like it is a bad word? I think not.

So this “opening up” deal is risky business. My little family does not “frequent” outside places with people. I hike a lot but distancing on trails is real easy with so few people. Plus they are coming up with ideas that outside stuff does not transmit the virus like being inside. I just love that. Fresh air and sunshine help abate a disease. That is a cure or prevention I can really get behind. So my family gets outside a whole bunch more now. We are lucky as we have land to do that on. But walks and parks are still on the agenda.

Libraries and places of worship. Get over it that they are not so cool to reopen quickly. But you can get books delivered and “church” gatherings can be at places like a bay or a large park. Right on, Jesus and Buddha did their best “preaching” outside. Bring a blanket gather with your home family and gaze at nature while getting a lesson in love. (Sorry if the preacher is talking about something else I doubt it is really preaching and a walk with prayers may be a better idea)

To those like my wife, a child returning to school seems like an unacceptable risk. And that takes us right up to when it may just be the lessor of two evils that we must take a risk at. Yikes. I hate that when either option stinks to an extent. For me; I fuss and worry and argue and balance and talk and pray and read and breath deep. Then by golly I put on my big boy pants and face it straight up and make either choice the right one because I refuse to be infected by negative Nelly. That is an unacceptable risk. Not a risk I will “manage” but rather one that I will aggressively get rid of.

Did you know that a whole lot of people do not like math? But they deal with it daily in matters like driving, time management, purchasing and cooking. The list goes on and on. Even in things like evaluation of a distance like off a step or behind another car is math. Our distances in life are minor immediate calculations in mathematics. Miss judge the height of that step and broken ankle here you come. Calculations mean risk of error of judgment.

When it comes down to it the only important risk I have is that of losing my own ability to love. Toxic people, opening up, driving on a freeway, eating food all carry a risk. But we must refuse to allow that risk to include love loss. That is not an acceptable risk.