On Risk and Knowing
A few years ago, I received a text that caught me off guard: “…a very scary thought struck me… that moral people like u are getting extinct.”
The message came from my friend Garish, and to understand its weight, you’d need the story that came before it.
Garish and I had just finished dinner after a long day of consulting at a client site together. He's originally from middle-class India, came to the U.S. for school and eventually worked in IT. He now lives in the US Southwest with his wife and two young children. We met on a challenging project and quickly became close, finding camaraderie through both shared work and deep conversation.
Over time, our friendship evolved into something rich and meaningful. I learned about his Eastern faith which he admits is more of a “way of life” than a religion for himself. At the same time, he’s become familiar with my Christian upbringing and American roots. Despite our different backgrounds, we’ve found common ground in unexpected places.
One topic Garish returns to often is the idea of risk. He’s fascinated by people who willingly take on danger such as climbers, adventurers, explorers. “Why do you do it?” he’ll ask. “What makes you want to climb a mountain, knowing you might not make it back?”
Now, I wouldn’t call myself a serious mountaineer. I’d say I’m more of a very amateur, sometimes reckless adventurer. I’ve taken on my share of risks in life, sometimes a little more risk than planned, but, so far, I’ve always returned.
Tonight, the conversation turned more personal. I pushed Garish to explain his curiosity about risk more directly, and he finally opened up. He told me that growing up, life offered him few tough choices. His path was clear, comfortable, and low-risk by design. “Why take on more than what’s required?” he said. “I do the job. I finish what needs to be done. Why go further?”
And he’s right. Garish is dependable, efficient, and good at what he does. I’ve seen the quality of his work firsthand. But unlike him, I see risk not as something to avoid, but as something that can elevate the experience of work, life, and connection.
Still, we differ in how we approach the world. Where he sees risk as unnecessary, I see it as essential. For me, risk is how I grow. It’s how I do better work, push boundaries, and stay engaged. It’s also how I’ve made incredible friends, experienced unforgettable moments, and built a life I’m proud of.
In my eyes, risk isn’t recklessness. It’s a choice… a conscious step into challenge with the hope of something greater on the other side.
That text Garish sent, about moral people going extinct, I think it came from a moment of reflection on our conversation. Maybe he was recognizing something in our differences, something about living intentionally, ethically, and with courage. Maybe he was paying me a compliment. Or maybe he was mourning how rare that mindset can seem.
Whatever the case, it left me thinking about this quote I have tacked to my bulletin board in my office by René Daumal, a French writer and thinker, best known for his unfinished novel Mount Analogue: A Novel of Symbolically Authentic Non-Euclidean Adventures in Mountain Climbing.
“You cannot stay on the summit forever. You have to come down—so why bother climbing in the first place? Simply this: What is above knows what is below. But what is below does not know what is above. One climbs, one sees. One descends, one sees no longer but one has seen. There is an art of conducting oneself in the lower regions by the memory of what one saw higher up. When one can no longer see, one can at least still know.”
To me, this says it all. Risk gives us perspective. And perspective gives us purpose. Even when we descend, we carry with us the vision of what we’ve seen.
And that makes all the difference.