The changeable nature of risk

I used to climb this tree when I was a kid. It’s huge. At least thirty feet up. That was probably the attraction. The adventure and the risk of climbing trees that could have resulted in serious injury (and did, I broke my heel falling out of a tree, although not this one).

The perception of risk and its consequences are interesting, changeable things. Different things seem risky to different degrees, by different people at different times. But are they, or is it just that our perception changes? We’ll leave that one to Heraclitus and Parmenides to figure out.

Tree I used to climb when I was young