Why Risk It?

What Hunter S. Thompson was to gonzo journalism and Miss Manners is to etiquette, Bill Gurstelle is to suburban dads who think it would be way cool to take some chemicals and PVC pipe out to the garage and construct a cannon that fires a potato with a muzzle velocity of 70 miles per hour.

A mechanical engineer by education and trade, Gurstelle wrote his first book in 2001. Its full title—Backyard Ballistics: Build Potato Cannons, Paper Match Rockets, Cincinnati Fire Kites, Tennis Ball Mortars, and More Dynamite Devices—was not only self-explanatory but a promise of things to come. He followed up with books including The Art of the Catapult; Whoosh, Boom, Splat; and Building Bots.

His sixth and latest book, published in June by Chicago Review Press and garnering attention from the likes of Wired and the New York Times, contains instructions for making more of what he calls “kinetic” devices. But it adds a philosophical dimension by delving into the value of risk taking in general. In Absinthe & Flamethrowers: Projects and Ruminations on the Art of Living Dangerously, Gurstelle propounds a kind of mortar-builder’s manifesto. He argues (and presents some evidence) that rational risk takers lead happier lives and have more successful careers.

Given your history, we understand the flamethrowers. But what led you to ruminations on risk taking?

Gurstelle: I think Backyard Ballistics was one of the first how-to books that gave people credit for taking responsibility for their own actions. What I said was, I believe that if you follow my instructions, you’ll have made something cool and impressive. Potato cannons and tennis ball mortars aren’t the usual dull and uninteresting science projects—they’re not nanny-state pabulum.

As for Absinthe & Flamethrowers, I had begun to think: My books are popular (thankfully) and fun, but is there anything important about building a potato cannon? This notion of tinkering with danger in a technological experiment—is that significant in any way? Which led to the broader question: Is it better to have some risk in your life or not?

What did you find?

Gurstelle: It turns out there’s been a lot of research on risk taking. You can take a test and find out where you are on the bell-shaped curve of risk-taking proclivity—basically with stay-at-home agoraphobe on the left-hand extreme and Evel Knievel on the right.

This research says that the best place to be on that curve, in terms of happiness and life satisfaction, is slightly to the right of average . . . . Given that, the rest of Absinthe is about ways to add reasonable, artful risk to your life.