Reckless Abandon

 

"You try to get up as close to the eye of it as you can, and you stay down in the southeast quadrant, and when it stops, you stop, you don't want to get in front of it, you want to stay behind it, but you also get a good ride out of a hurricane," said Walbridge, 63.

 The body of Robin Walbridge, the Bounty's captain for 17 years, was not found by Coast Guard rescue teams.

Los Angeles Times

Nov. 02, 2012

A hurricane can be seen coming. People can heed the warnings… the alerts often a week ahead of time. It is always fascinating to me that some prefer to stay and weather out the storm regardless of the warnings. Of course, we almost universally tag those who choose to do so as fools and we’ll mutter from our breakfast nooks on the other side of the continent pious proclamations about life being more important than property and so on. But I believe that there is something more substantial going on in these often fatal decisions.

     Does anyone remember Harry Truman (not our 33rd President)? No, I mean the character with a lodge on Spirit Lake directly in the path of the pyroclastic flow aimed, like a shotgun at a hillbilly wedding, directly in the face of poor Harry from the soon to explode, Mount Saint Helen. In spite of warnings and rumblings, people like ole Harry have a few things in common that I can see in my own outlook on life when, in spite of warnings, I stay… sometimes to stand my ground and at other times to simply stand.
    
     I can remember doing so on several occasions: with my drinking; with my smoking; and with a failed marriage… these were out of obstinate denial more so than anything else. Akin to the mythological Custer commanding his troops to, “Take no prisoners!” such denial can likewise prove just as fatal. For some, however, it is merely resignation to the overwhelming realization that life is a crap shoot anyway and that we are all going to end up the same way against the ultimate egalitarian democracy of death. There is this desire to live life as fully as one can in the face of sheer terror that is the force surging through some of us who would be considered risk-takers by the more staid. To stand on a deck with everything nature can throw in my face… I almost envy those who perish in such a manner. I believe it is a love of life that compels us in times of great peril… a love of life that goes beyond rational thought and the security of the nest. I can only imagine the exhilaration of an eaglet spreading its wings and dropping from the aerie for the very first time… A life assured of no such risk is no life at all to me. Reckless abandon is not the same as taking calculated risks.

     Am I a fool for feeling this way?

geo 5,160

     P.S.
     Captain Walbridge might have been deluded by his own sense of superiority over the sea after skippering the Bounty for over a decade through much higher seas. The sad part of it is that he allowed his ego to risk the lives of his crew. To the friends and family of Claudene Christian... my condolences.
geo 5,160