Licensed to...

007 - Licensed to kill


Mike’itect - Licensed to
practice architecture

I apologize for the light posting lately. My licensure renewal for this state comes up shortly and I’ve spent evenings and the last couple of weekends attending to online courses to meet the required number of continuing education credits for this renewal period.

I can barely stay awake to explain this, much less expect anyone reading about it to find any excitement in the information. Which brings me to this thought.

Does there seem to be an element of danger missing in your life? And by missing, I mean do you miss it? Most teenage guys I knew back when I was one tried to imitate were caught up by the exploits of characters like 007. I can't say that that sort of influence was the primary factor motivating our behavior. More likely, as teenagers, we just did risky, dangerous things by nature. Action movies probably only added fuel to the fire. I remember trying quite a few risky things myself, only some of which resulted in (mostly minor) injuries. That seemed to be the way we tested ourselves, trying to find out whether we were “made of sterner stuff,” or not.

With the increased responsibilities of the passing years, experiments of that type are now pretty much only eyeballed in the rear view mirror. What is the most dangerous thing I do now? I suppose that would be sorting through and trying to find the right CD to put in the car player while in busy traffic.

What? Comes across as lacking a certain captivating quality, you say?

Okay, then, how about this? We raised five children over the last thirty years. Due to everyday family living expenses, moving over two dozen times, including traveling to where work was available, and family-unfriendly, confiscatory tax rates, most of that time I didn’t carry life insurance or health insurance.

Would you call that dangerous? Some people would call it stupid. I called it having had little choice.

The less-than-adventurous soul makes little distinction between dangerous and stupid. But the thing is, there are no guarantees in life. Danger in the form of risk tolerance, to some degree, is required to maintain sanity.

As adults, the risks and dangers most of us live with are not as glamorous, or thrilling as the fictional examples that inspired us in adolescence, but that doesn’t mean they’re not vital or compelling. Just required, and often just thrust upon us. Most of the time we learn to settle into that reality.

Still, if I had a chance to step into James Bond’s shoes for 24 hours…?