Winners and losers

There's something about life that favors the daring, the risk-takers. It's something that's been built into humanity and other species by selective breeding down through the ages. It's certainly not the only mating strategy driver out there, but it is something that comes into play in both individual relationships and society as a whole. Timidity has its place, and sometimes even its own rewards, but a willingness to take a risk is much more often celebrated and admired.

I've written before about a personal theory of the role luck plays in evolution, and the way evolution selects for luck: there are certain apparently vestigial organs that seem to serve no other purpose in humans than to kill us if they become diseased (like the appendix) or damaged (like the spleen). In both cases there appears to be some evolutionary value involved: if susceptibility to diseases that affect organs like the appendix is the sort of thing that is likely to be passed on to offspring, deaths from conditions like appendicitis will tend to reduce the passage of these genes on to future offspring. Similarly, if an organ like the spleen can be damaged by dangerous and excessive risk-taking, then deaths due to damaged spleens eliminate those individuals likely to engage in patterns of behavior that result in damaged spleens, reducing the likelihood that they will pass on any such genetic or behavioral proclivities to their offspring.

I believe these theories fall into the category known by respectable scientists as "crackpot." But maybe not.

Someone removed himself from the gene pool this weekend. A 19-year-old was skateboarding in a parking lot at a school about 500 feet from where I'm sitting, a parking lot with "NO TRESPASSING" and "NO SKATEBOARDING" signs. There were not, however, any "NO HOLDING ONTO THE BACK OF A CAR WHILE RIDING ON A SKATEBOARD WITHOUT ANY SAFETY EQUIPMENT" signs, but if there were he would have ignored those, too, since that is what he was doing when he sustained a traumatic head injury last Friday afternoon. Heroic efforts were made on his behalf. A LifeFlight helicopter made the all-too-frequent hop from the airport in Avoca to the Nanticoke baseball field. But he died anyway.

I want to be snarky. I want to say "Well, he'll never do that again." But people knew this guy, and cared about him. And he's dead now. I guess that's always the case. Well, almost always.

Life rewards risk-takers. Women swoon over daring, adventurous males. TV shows earn huge revenue showing people doing stupid, dangerous things.

And every once in a while, somebody rolls snake eyes and comes up a loser.