risk-benefit analysis
It all comes down to this: how much does this matter to me? If I can’t survive without it, then I’ve got to reel in all my lines and just aim straight for the target. Do-or-die. No quarter given.
If I fail, I may as well fail spectacularly, with explosions and flares and other incendiary catastrophes.
And if it doesn’t matter that much to me? Then I’ve got to just let it ride. Let the current take me to wherever I gotta go, and don’t sweat it. I’ve lost far more things than I’ve ever picked up. I’ve missed way more chances than I’ve ever taken. This is how life as a human being is. You make a choice, a whole branch of the decision tree becomes inaccessible to you. We are not only mortal, we are limited to experiencing a single reality.
The thing is, there’s no such thing as 100%. Even if I go on my Death Star run and let the Force run through me, there’s no reason why my torpedos should actually slide down that shaft and hit the reactor core. More likely than not, I’m going to get shot down by Darth Vader and go out in a brief burst of flame.
And I’m tired of crashing all the time.
Why I imagine these sorts of things as some kind of battle actually disturbs me. Why is it that I can’t look at winning a woman’s heart from a sane point-of-view?
Everything gets twisted, spun around, distorted. The world slips out from under me. I’m operating under an alternate form of reality. The rules of the universe that I’ve come to rely on have changed entirely.
Anything that I thought made sense no longer does.
I don’t know. Maybe I can do this Friend Zone™ thing yet one more time. What’s one more time? No one ever died from being rejected. I mean, there have been plenty of people who have killed themselves because of it, but that’s an entirely different story.
I dig this quote a lot, actually: “Why can’t I set my heart on a possible thing?” It’s from The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K Le Guin, who also wrote the Earthsea Cycle.
I’ve used it quite a bit, in fact.
Why do I always jump to unwarranted conclusions, when all I should do is ride the wave, and let it take me where it will? Even if this all ends badly, can’t I just live in the moment for once?
Why do I insist on always dissecting my happiness until it unravels into jittery nervousness, panic, and raving insanity?
Why can’t I just stop thinking, and actually start doing?
I really need someone to give me a swift kick in the ass. Times like these, I miss Bram and Ben severely.
Just a small kick. Enough to get me over the threshold. I’m like a domino ready to fall.
Oh, life on the precipice is sometimes quite nauseating. Just jump already. Just jump. Argh.