Warwick Cairns - How to Live Dangerously: The Hazards of Helmets, the Benefits of Bacteria, and the Risks of Living Too Safe

HOW TO LIVE
DANGEROUSLY

HOW TO LIVE DANGEROUSLY . Copyright 2008 by Warwick Cairns. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address St. Martins Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.stmartins.com

Book design by Jonathan Bennett

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cairns, Warwick.

How to live dangerously : the hazards of helmets, the benefits of bacteria, and the risks of living too safe / Warwick Cairns.1st ed.

p. cm.

ISBN-13: 978-0-312-53389-2

ISBN-10: 0-312-53389-6

1. Fear. 2. Worry. 3. Anxiety. I. Title.

BF575.F2 C35 2009

152.4'6dc22

2008044073

First published in the United Kingdom by Pan Macmillan

First U.S. Edition: June 2009

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

CONTENTS

PREFACE

THIS IS a book about the dangers of life, and how we face up to them. Or rather, its a book about how we fail to face up to them these days.

In this book, you will find out why we worry too much about some things, and why we dont worry enough about others. You will learn more about how weve stopped letting our children go out to play, and why, as a consequence, they are growing up fat, unhealthy, and unhappy. And you will see more clearly the many ways in which we give up responsibility for our own actions and allow ourselves to be ordered about by ever more ludicrous and intrusive new laws and regulationslaws and regulations that are passed, in the most part, by bossy and self-important individuals who think that they know better than we do how we should be allowed to live our lives.

Its something of a journey, this book, and it sets off from some of the more unusual fears and obsessions of our age and goes all the way to the structure and function of the human brain and beyond, by way of frivolous lawsuits, the chemicals in burnt toast, some confessions of childhood foolishness, the family tree of Genghis Khan, the traffic system of the Dutch town of Drachten, a rather unwise experiment you can do with an arrow, and some tips to help you do better at any dangerous sports you may happen to take part in.

The gist of it all, though, is that we all ought to stop worrying so much about things, and that we ought to get out and live a bit more, and take a few more risks. And it follows from this that if you take the advice given in this book, bad things will happen to you. Thats what happens, you see, when you take risks.

But you should also find, if you follow the advice in this book, that many, many more good things will happen to you by way of recompense; and they will be things that will make you feel intensely and passionately alive, right here and right now.

THERE ARE any number of places to start a journey into danger. But we will start ours, in this book, in the living room of a suburban house, somewhere in Middle America.

There is a couch in this room, large and pale brown in color, upholstered in leather or leatherette. There is a matching La-Z-Boy recliner, half-reclined, on which a party of Power Ranger figurines sit, surrounded by their various weaponry and accoutrements. A Barbie doll, recently ejected from her position, lies on the carpet before them. Across the room there is a mahogany-colored bookcase-cum-display-unit holding a number of crystal animals, framed family photographs, and ornamental porcelain plates; next to it, by the large picture window, there is another unit, in brushed aluminum, holding a wide-screen television, a DVD player, and a VCR, and beneath them a rather disordered stack of tapes and disks that have recently been rifled through and opened and abandoned and scattered all around by the human occupants of the room, a young boy and a slightly older girl, who are sitting on the floor surrounded by a sea of plastic toys of various shapes and colors. The room had been tidy when their mother left it, no more than ten minutes earlier, to attend to the ironing, but by no stretch of the imagination could it be considered so now. And then words are exchanged between the children, and at some point one pulls the others hairor at least, this is what the other saysand the other then pinches the first in retaliation, and Mom! one cries, Mo-om! And the mother returns to the room and does her best to get to the bottom of it and to restore some semblance of order and harmony. A typical day in a typical home, in fact, such as youd see in any home in any part of the country.

And it strikes the mother then that it might be a good idea, at that point, to put on a DVD, from the point of view of occupying the children for long enough to get done what needs to be done; but just as she picks up a disk from the floor that she thinks will do the trick, there comes a knock, rat-tat-tat-tat-tat, at the door. And then, a moment later, the same again: rat-tat-tat-tat-tat.

No sooner has she opened the door than a pinch-faced little man carrying a clipboard brushes straight past her and marches right into the living room.

Social Services, he says, by way of explanation.

Im sorry? says the mother.

Social Services. As I think I already said.

B-but...?

We have reason to believe, he says, ignoring the interruption, that you have been exposing your children to unsuitable material. Material of an... adult nature. In fact... , he says, spotting the disk in the mothers hand and snatching it from her, material like this.

He holds up the box. Sesame Street, it says, volumes 1 and 2.

Thats not adult material, says the mother.

Oh, really? says the man, turning the box around. Then how do you explain this?

And there, printed on the back of the box, is the following warning: These early Sesame Street episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of todays preschool child.

These are adult-only Sesame Streets, he says.

Adult-only?

Thats what I said. They encourage modeling of dangerous and inappropriate behavior. There is overeating of unhealthy foods in them....

Theyre just puppets.

Muppets, I think youll find. And dangerously irresponsible muppets at that. The Cookie Monster... Well, I hardly think that he is a good example to set for your children. Do you know the incidence of diabetes in this country? And as if the eating werent bad enough, there is smoking. Smoking! The Cookie Monster again, but this time attempting to pass himself off as Alistair Cookie of Monsterpiece Theater. As if thats fooling anyone. And then, to top it all off, there is the eating of the smoking.

The eating of the smoking?

He eats his pipe. Need I say more?