Ordinary Hazards Quotes

I will not be a common man. I will stir the smooth sands of monotony. I do not crave security. I wish to hazard my soul to opportunity.

Trauma is a memory hog, It gobbles up all available space in the brain, leaves little room to mark daily happenstances, or even routine injuries which are less than life-threatening.

It reminds us that as ordinary as we might be, we can, if we choose, take the harder road, walk forth bravely under the indifferent stars. We can hazard the ravages of chance. We can choose to endure what seems unendurable, and thereby open up the possibility of prevailing. We can awaken to the world as it is, and, seeing it with eyes wide open, we can nevertheless embrace hope rather than despair.

Achieving the summit of a mountain was tangible, immutable, concrete. The incumbent hazards lent the activity a seriousness of purpose that was sorely missing from the rest of my life. I thrilled in the fresh perspective that came from the tipping the ordinary plane of existence on end.

I will be judged as a human being by what readers find here. There are hazards to openness, but they seem minor compared with the possibility that some readers may find comfort, perhaps even inspiration, from a close examination of how an ordinary person, with strengths and weaknesses like anyone else, has managed an extraordinary journey.

...ideas are definitely unstable, they not only CAN be misused, they invite misuse--and the better the idea the more volatile it is. That's because only the better ideas turn into dogma, and it is this process whereby a fresh, stimulating, humanly helpful idea is changed into robot dogma that is deadly. In terms of hazardous vectors released, the transformation of ideas into dogma rivals the transformation of hydrogen into helium, uranium into lead, or innocence into corruption. And it is nearly as relentless. The problem starts at the secondary level, not with the originator or developer of the idea but with the people who are attracted by it, who adopt it, who cling to it until their last nail breaks, and who invariably lack the overview, flexibility, imagination, and most importantly, sense of humor, to maintain it in the spirit in which it was hatched. Ideas are made by masters, dogma by disciples, and the Buddha is always killed on the road. There is a particularly unattractive and discouragingly common affliction called tunnel vision, which, for all the misery it causes, ought to top the job list at the World Health Organization. Tunnel vision is a disease in which perception is restricted by ignorance and distorted by vested interest. Tunnel vision is caused by an optic fungus that multiplies when the brain is less energetic than the ego. It is complicated by exposure to politics. When a good idea is run through the filters and compressors of ordinary tunnel vision, it not only comes out reduced in scale and value but in its new dogmatic configuration produces effects the opposite of those for which it originally was intended. That is how the loving ideas of Jesus Christ became the sinister cliches of Christianity. That is why virtually every revolution in history has failed: the oppressed, as soon as they seize power, turn into the oppressors, resorting to totalitarian tactics to "protect the revolution." That is why minorities seeking the abolition of prejudice become intolerant, minorities seeking peace become militant, minorities seeking equality become self-righteous, and minorities seeking liberation become hostile (a tight asshole being the first symptom of self-repression).

Does it occur to you that if he set his mind to it, Steve could be a truly excellent supervillain?” Clint said into the comm unit, not bothering with any sort of segue. He knew very well who it was. “We have a contingency plan in place for that,” Coulson said without missing a beat. In the background, Steve said, “Wait, what?” “Oh, c'mon.” Stark sounded seriously insulted. “If anyone here is going to go the black leather and weather control ray route, it's gonna be me, let's not even kid ourselves.” “Every active SHIELD employee has a wallet card instructing them what to do in the event you go supervillain, Stark. It's standard equipment.” A beat of silence. “What?” Tony asked. “I got one,” Bruce said. “Want to see it?” “If you show it to him, it'll defeat the purpose of having a plan,” Natasha said. “And I like this plan, it's a good plan, I do not want to go through them trying to come up with something else.” “Yes, I want to see it,” Tony said. “Thor, did you get a card?” “Verily. Their plan is most sound. I believe we will be able to subdue you with great swiftness, before you have much chance to hurt yourself or others. The damage to property will, of course, be massive, but such things are to be expected.” “What the hell? You will not be able to subdue me quickly. Screw you, I am wily and brilliant.” “I didn't get one,” Steve said, and there was a loud sound of no one being surprised. “It's not a good idea to warn the bait that-” Clint started...

Clint stared down at him. He was wearing what appeared to be a massive, lopsided and jewel-encrusted crown, holding a scepter and surrounded by a floating mass of Roombas. “Welcome to the sovereign nation of Bartonia,” he said, with a straight face. “My subjects, the Roombas, the drones and one random mechanical bird thing that I found, and I welcome you, and ask you what the fuck you think you're doing here, you are seriously a fucking moron.” “I'm here,” Tony gritted out, “to rescue you, and what kind of fucking attitude is that?.” “A little short for a storm trooper, aren't you?” Clint said, arching an eyebrow. He offered Tony a hand. “Are you wearing a crown? Seriously? Where did you get a- Why are you wearing a crown?” Tony asked, taking it and allowing Clint to help lever him back to his feet. “Listen, dude, I have learned something about myself today. Mostly, I have learned that if I end up in some sort of alien rubbish dump surrounded by neurotic robots and without a clue as to if I'm ever going to make it home, if I find a crown, I'm putting that bad boy on. There should never be a time when you do not wear a crown. Find a crown, you wear it and declare sovereignty over the vast mechanical wastes.” Clint waved his scepter around a bit, making the Roombas dodge. “Thus, Bartonia.

I didn't have much in the world, but my fears were my own.

The perfect adventure shouldn’t be that much more hazardous in a real sense than ordinary life, for that invisible rope that holds us here can always break. We can live a life of bored caution and die of cancer. Better to take the adventure, minimize the risks, get the information, and then go forward in the knowledge that we’ve done everything we can. No,

MY BLACK ME My father fed me Invisible Man, Native Son, No Longer at Ease, Black Man's Burden, and the more I read, the madder I got, and I already had reason to scream, but my father kept me dreaming of what words I might bring to the world.

...heroes are sometimes the most ordinary -seeming people. It reminds us that as ordinary as we might be, we can, if we choose, take the harder road, walk forth bravely under the indifferent stars. We can hazard the ravages of chance. We can choose to endure what seems unendurable, and thereby open up the possibility of prevailing. We can awaken to the world as it is, and seeing it with eyes wide open, we can nevertheless embrace hope rather than despair.

this writing thing was some kind of magic trick I didn't yet understand, except for this: Magicians rarely share their secrets.

I envisaged a woman of the late nineteenth century marrying into this milieu, finding it unendurable and fleeing back with her child to the more ordinary hazards of London: of that child, given at her christening the ancient Roman name for the island, Sarnia, but reared in ignorance of her paternal background, discovering, after her mother’s death, that she was an heiress, and being bidden back to claim her patrimony. Skulduggery followed naturally.

It reminds us that as ordinary as we might be, we can, if we choose, take the harder road, walk forth bravely under the indifferent stars. We can hazard the ravages of chance. We can choose to endure what seems unendurable, and thereby open up the possibility of prevailing. We can awaken to the world as it is, and, seeing it with eyes wide open, we can nevertheless embrace hope rather than despair. When all is said and done, I think the story tells us that hope is the hero’s domain, not the fool’s. Because we dare to hope—even when doing so might undo us—we leave the worlds we create behind us, swirling in our wakes, eternal and effervescent with the beauty of our aspirations.

Among those troops that I had joined were plenty of regular units with reliable officers, crowds of restless adventurers on the lookout for a fight and with it the chances of loot and relaxation of ordinary rules of conduct. Patriots could not bear the idea of break down of law and order at home and wish to guard the frontiers from the incursion of the Red Flood. There was the Baltic Landswehr, recruited from the local gentry who were determined at all cost to save their 700 year old traditions, their noble and vigorous yet fastidious culture, the Eastern bulwark of German civilization. And there were German battalions consisting of men who wanted to settle in the country who were hungering for land. Of troops desiring to fight for the existing government there were none. The like-minded ones were soon dissociated from general mass which was swept eastwards by crash of Western front. We seemed suddenly to have collected as if a secret signal. We found ourselves apart from the crowd. Knowing neither what we are we sought not gold. The blood suddenly ran hotly through our veins and called us to adventure and hazard. Drove us to wandering and danger. And herded together those of us who realized our profound kinship with one another. We were a band of warriors, extravagant in our demands, triumphantly definite in our decisions. What we wanted we did not know, but what we knew we did not want. To force our way through the prisoning walls of the world. To march over burning field, to stamp over ruins and scattered ashes, to dash recklessly through wild forests, over blasted heaps to push, conquer, eat our way towards the East, to the white hot dark cold land that stretched between ourselves and Asia. Was that what we wanted? I do not know if that was our desire and they was what we did. And the search for reasons why was lost in the tumult of the continuous fighting.

Few experiences rival a serious climb for bringing us into close contact with our own limitations. Part engineering project, part chess game, part ultramarathon, mountaineering demands of us in a way that other endeavors do not. After my trip to Cholatse, I came to think of high-altitude climbing not so much as a sport but as a kind of art or even, in its purest form, rugged spirituality—a modern version of secular asceticism that purifies the soul by stripping away worldly comfort and convenience while forcing you to stare across the threshold of mortality. It is our effort to toil through these hazardous and inhospitable landscapes that culminates with such potent effect, what humanistic psychologists have described as the attainment of self-actualization, a pinnacle of personal expression that dissolves the constraints of our ordinary lives and allows us, even if fleetingly, to “become what we are capable of becoming.” This transformative power is, in a way, why summits have taken on so much symbolic importance for those who pursue them. As the reigning mythology suggests, the higher the peak—Rainier, Cholatse, Everest—the more it fires the imagination.

Marvin stood there. ‘Out of my way little robot,’ growled the tank. ‘I’m afraid,’ said Marvin, ‘that I’ve been left here to stop you.’ The probe extended again for a quick recheck. It withdrew again. ‘You? Stop me?’ roared the tank, ‘Go on!’ ‘No, really I have,’ said Marvin simply. ‘What are you armed with?’ roared the tank in disbelief. ‘Guess,’ said Marvin. The tank’s engines rumbled, its gears ground. Molecule-sized electronic relays deep in its micro-brain flipped backwards and forwards in consternation. ‘Guess?’ said the tank. ‘Yes, go on,’ said Marvin to the huge battle machine, ‘you’ll never guess.’ ‘Errrmmm …’ said the machine, vibrating with unaccustomed thought, ‘laser beams?’ Marvin shook his head solemnly. ‘No,’ muttered the machine in its deep gutteral rumble, ‘Too obvious. Anti-matter ray?’ it hazarded. ‘Far too obvious,’ admonished Marvin. ‘Yes,’ grumbled the machine, somewhat abashed, ‘Er … how about an electron ram?’ This was new to Marvin. ‘What’s that?’ he said. ‘One of these,’ said the machine with enthusiasm. From its turret emerged a sharp prong which spat a single lethal blaze of light. Behind Marvin a wall roared and collapsed as a heap of dust. The dust billowed briefly, then settled. ‘No,’ said Marvin, ‘not one of those.’ ‘Good though, isn’t it?’ ‘Very good,’ agreed Marvin. ‘I know,’ said the Frogstar battle machine, after another moment’s consideration, ‘you must have one of those new Xanthic Re-Structron Destabilized Zenon Emitters!’ 'Nice, aren’t they?’ agreed Marvin. ‘That’s what you’ve got?’ said the machine in condiderable awe. ‘No,’ said Marvin. ‘Oh,’ said the machine, disappointed, ‘then it must be …’ ‘You’re thinking along the wrong lines,’ said Marvin, ‘You’re failing to take into account something fairly basic in the relationship between men and robots.’ ‘Er, I know,’ said the battle machine, 'is it … ’ it tailed off into thought again. ‘Just think,’ urged Marvin, ‘they left me, an ordinary, menial robot, to stop you, a gigantic heavy-duty battle machine, whilst they ran off to save themselves. What do you think they would leave me with?’ ‘Oooh er,’ muttered the machine in alarm, ‘something pretty damn devastating I should expect.’ ‘Expect!’ said Marvin. ‘Oh yes, expect. I’ll tell you what they gave me to protect myself with shall I?’ ‘Yes, alright,’ said the battle machine, bracing itself. ‘Nothing,’ said Marvin. There was a dangerous pause. 'Nothing?’ roared the battle machine. ‘Nothing at all,’ intoned Marvin dismally, ‘not an electronic sausage.’ The machine heaved about with fury. ‘Well doesn’t that just take the biscuit!’ it roared, ‘Nothing, eh?’ Just don’t think, do they?’ ‘And me,’ said Marvin in a soft low voice, ‘with this terrible pain in all the diodes down my left side.’ ‘Makes you spit, doesn’t it?’ ‘Yes,’ agreed Marvin with feeling. ‘Hell that makes me angry,’ bellowed the machine, ‘think I’ll smash that wall down!’ The electron ram stabbed out another searing blaze of light and took out the wall next to the machine. ‘How do you think I feel?’ said Marvin bitterly. ‘Just ran off and left you did they?’ the Machine thundered. ‘Yes,’ said Marvin. ‘I think I’ll shoot down their bloody ceiling as well!’ raged the tank. It took out the ceiling of the bridge. ‘That’s very impressive,’ murmured Marvin. ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet,’ promised the machine, ‘I can take out this floor too, no trouble!’ It took out the floor too. ‘Hells bells!’ the machine roared as it plummeted fifteen storeys and smashed itself to bits on the ground below. ‘What a depressingly stupid machine,’ said Marvin and trudged away.

A metaphor hath undoubtedly the strongest effect when it is first ushered into the language; but by reason of its peculiar boldness, this, as was hinted already, is rarely to be hazarded, I may say it ought never to be hazarded, unless when both the perspicuity is secured to an ordinary understanding by the connexion, and the resemblance suggested is very striking.

But a home full of angles isn’t just hazardous to a child. It sets everyone subtly on edge. Sharp angles slow our movement and increase the sense of formality in a space. You don’t break into spontaneous happy dances in a living room where you risk splitting your shin on the coffee table, and you don’t do a running jump to join your partner in bed when you might catch your foot on the corner of the bedpost. Because hard angles inhibit joyful movement, they also decrease flow, and I wasn’t surprised to find that feng shui practitioners discourage using them in the home.

But I think what Sarah’s story tells us is that there were in fact heroes in the Donner Party, and that heroes are sometimes the most ordinary-seeming people. It reminds us that as ordinary as we might be, we can, if we choose, take the harder road, walk forth bravely under the indifferent stars. We can hazard the ravages of chance. We can choose to endure what seems unendurable, and thereby open up the possibility of prevailing. We can awaken to the world as it is, and, seeing it with eyes wide open, we can nevertheless embrace hope rather than despair. When all is said and done, I think the story tells us that hope is the hero’s domain, not the fool’s.

Properly speaking, since my business in town had finished, I should have gone back to Corps headquarters and got on with my paperwork. Somehow, though, I felt that would be a bad idea. It’s inconceivable that the general, or the admiral or the Chamberlain or one of the divisional chiefs, or one of their many, many staff, would arrange for a serving officer of the empire to be murdered as he rode home alone along the lonely roads across the moors. But even in an empire as well ordered as ours, there are bandits, discharged soldiers, runaway slaves, disaffected serfs, religious zealots and ordinary loons, all manner of bad people who’d cut your throat for the nails in your boots, and from time to time officers who’d made nuisances of themselves had fallen foul of them, and other hazards of long-distance travel.

But when you asked a Craftsperson a simple question about, say, theology, they’d hem and haw and “unless” at you until they begrudged that while without further research they couldn’t offer a definitive answer, their guess, which did not constitute advice in any professional sense and should not be relied upon as if it were same, was that you should under no circumstances and at the hazard of imminent eschatological consequence do whatever very simple and ordinary and profitable thing you very much wanted to do. As if that wasn’t bad enough: sometimes, just to mess with your head, they gave you a simple answer. Especially when your question was something like “How bad can this get?” The answer was, almost always, worse than you thought. And then you got their bill.