The Nature of Risk

Intellectually, I understand that each person has a different set of circumstances in which some actions feel risky. Each person faces their own unique set of fears and handles the risk differently. Understanding, though, is not enough. It doesn't mean I can accurately assess what another person finds risky and to what degree any given behavior will feel like risk.

I had a long dream last night about risk.

I woke up from it and realized that I have been trying to assess and calculate what other people will do in a given situation based on what feels risky to me. It is not true in every situation, but it is so in most situations.

That has not worked well. :)

I also got a bit of clarity on some risks that I've not classified as risks. You know, the ones that are so risky that I assign them to "unimportant" so that I don't have to deal with them directly. There are a couple of places where I am either stopped or moving very slowly and I was hiding the risk from my self. I was ignoring the trepidation. I was not willing to look at the worst case scenario.

That should be a very strong clue for me. :) If I am unwilling to explore the worst case scenario for some given course, I haven't really given my commitment to it. For instance, a fitness program for myself. I have resisted, no, refused, to examine the worst case scenario.

In another area of my life, I'm about to take a risk. But it's a backward risk. I mean, this is the kind of risk where action is less risky than inaction. It is the worst way to do it. I ended up married the first time because of this particular cowardice.

There are three areas of my life in which I am a coward right now. One is employment -- either making self-employment work or getting a job. Another is my level of participation in CI. There are places I am moving so slow that even I think I'm not moving at all. :)

And the third is my interactions with a small number of people. I'm not willing to ask them for help when the pattern of our relationships get more complicated than I can follow. I get stuck in a Twisty Little Maze. Then I make up reasons why I can't ask any of them any questions.

I get lost, feel stupid for getting lost, then wonder in the wilderness pretending that all is well. That would be avoiding looking at the worst case scenario.

I love my life. I don't understand it very well, but I love it.

A number of people have commented recently about the amount of introspection I go through. This is, in fact, one of those the areas where it feels riskier to avoid it. Way riskier.

Generalilzing

I just realized that my generalizing ability really sucks. I have no skill at all.

I see a couple of you rolling your eyes. :) It is, though, true. I work very hard to guard against assuming any of my experiences of the world are universal. Very hard. (There goes that eye rolling again.)

What I do is attempt to generalize from the collected experiences of lots of people. And that should actually work. Except I don't do it very well.

Here I sit thinking about an area in which I have great skill -- troubleshooting. I can troubleshoot hardware problems and I can debug programs in languages I barely know. I can coach people past any block they care to tackle. It's all a form of troubleshooting. And it is looking for what is out of place in the pattern.

I have a friend who is very logical, bright and well informed. He thoroughly understands dozens of programming languages. He can't troubleshoot to save his soul. He can, however, generalize. When he works on solving a specific problem, he ends up creating tools that can be used to solve many different problems.

I can spot a point in an existing pattern and he can see a pattern in a point. It is entirely a different skill set.

And it is why I have such trouble in my interactions with people. There are clear, simple patterns in populations. Social scientists are pretty good at predicting some kinds of future actions for populations.

But the patterns between individuals are way to complicated for me to work with. I can't seem to generalize from one person to another in workable ways. My models are way too simplistic and I don't seem to have the facility to keep more complex ones in my head or to apply them.

It's part of why I tell people I take them at face value and it is why I get to a particular level of closeness and not closer. It's why I don't think to ask what people do for a living, if they are single or not or anything else that would be individual to that person. That data will quickly overwhelm my model and I will be lost.

When I do want to be closer to someone (there are always a small number for whom I am willing to brave the the chaos), I struggle to find ways to be close without being an ass in their eyes.

I'm a lot better at mending the fence than I am at building it in the first place.

I have an enormous amount of trouble being with the chaos.

Winter is coming

It's in the low 60s right now and gusty. The skies are overcast and mean looking. A quick look at the NWS forecast for Coastal San Diego County and winter is parked at our address for the week.

Rain by tonight last through Friday night. Heaviest tomorrow. 2-4 inches along the coast. That is a lot of rain. A flash flood watch is in effect. Hazardous Weather Outlook

Highs all week are low 60s. Lows are in the low 50s and upper 40s.

That's pretty cold for San Diego.

Can't stop.

I'm nervous. My chest is tight and it's hard to breathe. And I'm shaking slightly. Sigh.