LOVE OF RISK
Aristotle said that courage is a just balance between cowardice and recklessness.
I like the image of the tightrope walker.
Too far to the left, and one no longer moves forward. Too far to the right, and one falls while running.
Recklessness is the love of risk, the hothead who confuses speed with life.
One must admit it, risk can become exhilarating, especially when one is young.
At that age, it is a way of testing one’s strength, one’s luck, one’s skin, sometimes even one’s place in the world.
As if brushing the abyss gave greater value to the light. But there is a detail, almost irritating in its simplicity.
Intelligence exists precisely to anticipate, reduce, and contain.
It is therefore more a disaffection for risk than a love of risk.
In other words, without malice and with the coldness of facts, the love of risk is not particularly intelligent.
We remember that scene from Rebel Without a Cause, two cars racing toward a cliff, and the winner is the one who jumps out last, just before the void.
That is the love of risk, brushing against death in order to feel alive.
And sometimes, without judgment yet with concern, one finds oneself wondering whether the person who takes such risks may prefer, for a fleeting instant, the intensity of the end to the patience of the day.
In a life as a lawyer, I have learned this. Risk is always present, but we choose how we look at it.
That is where the beginner’s mind enters the stage.
It is tempting to believe that experience protects. That it makes us cautious, solid, impossible to surprise.
But there is another truth, more unsettling. Experience can also confine.
It is said that nearly three thousand years ago in China, the game of Go was born.
An ancient board, black and white stones, and such complexity that for a long time it was believed no machine could defeat a grand master.
Then came an artificial intelligence, AlphaGo.
It analyzed thousands of games, then played against itself again and again, until one day, facing the champion, it made a move no one had dared attempt for centuries.
Commentators believed it was a mistake.
The champion stood up and left the room, as though logic itself had slipped out of the world.
And yet it was the move that opened a door.
What unsettles in this story is not merely computational power.
It is the idea that a mind freed from tradition can sometimes see wider than one burdened by the weight of “we have always done it this way.”
In law, that phrase returns often. It reassures. And it can kill a strategy.
-Because a case file is never a carbon copy.
-Because a human situation is not a form.
-Because a just decision sometimes requires becoming a beginner again, asking simple questions, returning to the facts, seeing the person before the habit.
The beginner’s mind is not glorious ignorance. It is availability.
Not confusing the map with the territory, the reflex with the truth.
And when one allows this, something naturally appears, innocence, that strange force that creates.
There is a paradoxical idea. Not knowing contains a form of power.
Not lazy ignorance, but the kind that dares to ask what if we tried differently.
The Ramones believed they were making mainstream pop.
Many saw something else, a birth, a cultural shock, a new way of saying we are here.
They were not experts of the future. They were free.
Innocence allows creation without premature self-censorship.
A child does not calculate a legacy. He tries. He falls. He begins again.
He has not yet learned the shame of attempts.
In a firm that is being born, and mine is one year old, one lives this exact experience, though in a suit.
One builds a place, a method, a voice, without an army behind.
One moves forward with a small lamp and many nights.
And one discovers that being alone is not merely a fragility.
It is also an opportunity, the chance to preserve a freedom of movement, not to be imprisoned by an old style, a fixed image, or an expected audience.
But innocence is not irresponsibility.
In law as in life, one word stands watch, austere and saving, responsibility.
And that responsibility leads to an essential distinction, loving risk is not knowing how to take it.
When one loves life, one takes care of it.
One does not need to risk losing it in order to cherish it. And yet to live without ever risking is sometimes to fade while standing.
The sense of risk is not the love of risk. It is risk that is measured, calculated, consciously assumed.
The navigator who prepares for months does not love danger. He loves the crossing he makes possible.
The entrepreneur who launches a project after reducing uncertainties does not love fear. She loves to build.
The couple who changes their life after deep reflection does not love destruction. They love to open.
The sense of risk is what remains of the love of risk after everything has been done to reduce it.
It is a demanding discipline, to reduce first, then to assume.
In a firm, this resembles a sound strategy. One gathers the facts. One verifies the evidence.
One anticipates the consequences, the deadlines, the areas of uncertainty.
One measures the options and their human cost. Then one chooses.
For the absence of choice is itself a choice, that of stagnation.
The opposite danger exists. By constantly reducing, one can become incapable of risking.
One falls into timidity, into excessive precaution, into an aversion to risk that ultimately becomes life-denying.
If the love of risk threatens life, total aversion to risk threatens it just as much.
True courage is not rushing forward. It is walking into the uncertain with open eyes.
Then remains an intimate, almost silent question. What do I truly call success.
How does one measure success. It is often confused with popularity, money, applause, a polished image.
But these criteria are mirrors. They reflect. They do not judge.
True success often arises in the intimacy of the soul.
At the moment one decides to make the work public, even before the verdict of others, because one has done everything within one’s power.
Then one lets go.
This first year of my firm has taught me something simple. External success is a poor barometer.
One can work rightly and remain invisible. One can be visible and work wrongly.
What we do not control are the market, the era, the noise, and chance.
What we can control, however, is doing our best, remaining consistent, serving with integrity, continuing even when the echo is delayed.
Seeking success as a remedy for a wound often leads to a double penalty, exhaustion followed by disappointment.
No recognition alone repairs what requires inner work. Sometimes, succeeding simply means moving forward.
Finishing. Sharing. Beginning again. An active peace.
In the end, success is not merely winning.
It is remaining capable of loving, the world, others, and the right measure of risk required to continue standing upright.
In a city where only what shines was noticed lived a learned Fox, careful to lose nothing.
He calculated everything. He moved with caution, weighing his words, counting his steps, convinced that a well-managed life should leave nothing to chance.
Not far away, a Sparrow passed by. Without purse or strategy, light as a promise.
He greeted a stranger without seeking payment. He offered a crumb without purchasing gratitude.
The Fox, amused, told him that scattering gestures no one returned was impoverishing oneself for the sake of wind.
The Sparrow replied that he did not give to gain, he gave to remain alive.
He feared lack, yes, but feared even more no longer knowing how to love.
Then came winter, that silent judge.
The Fox had prepared everything. Yet he had forgotten the essential, the heart needs fire.
Cold does not enter only through doors. It settles in silence as well.
The Sparrow had accumulated nothing. But he had sown gestures, an outstretched hand here, a shared flame there, and that wealth no chest can hold, gratitude.
The Fox understood that the real risk is not losing, but forgetting to live and no longer knowing how to smile without calculation.
What gives meaning to a life is not what one avoids losing, but what one accepts to offer.
One becomes truly alive only by caring for what transcends us.
Learning to love.
To love without waiting. To love fully. To smile for the gesture without demanding the rest. To learn to live and to know how to let go.
End and beginning.