On Risk Taking and Dying

It must be assumed that anyone visiting dangerous places or doing anything life threatening at such places knows and accepts the risk of doing so.  If they don’t even read the signs, how sad, too bad.  I have hiked the mist trail in Yosemite many times knowing full well that one misstep or slip will be fatal.  I don’t take unnecessary risks for a pic or a selfie, but the rewards, including the rush of challenging death are worth the risk.  Everyone dies.  The deaths of those close to me affect me, but strangers or even friends who have accepted the risk of an untimely death and die affect me no more than their death from any cause would.

A friend of mine was an extreme skier, if you watch those movies you have probably seen herm skiing off a cornice and jumping a rock and free falling hundreds of feet.  His recent death, untimely from cancer, was much more tragic than any accident on the ski slopes would have been simply because hesh was not dancing with death, but running from it.