What Rudyard Kipling teaches us about risk

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss …

We know this line. It is from the poem “If—” by Rudyard Kipling.

The poem paints a picture of what being a man looks like—allegedly.

Or, specifically: Being a man according to Victorian values.

This one line keeps popping into my mind these days. As if I should be pondering it, in preparation for things to come.

Is that what it truly takes to be called a man, my son? Risking everything on “one turn of pitch-and-toss”?

Do that often enough and you are betting against mathematics itself. Good luck with your luck!

Well, the lines continue. Here’s more context:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss:

It’s not the game that “makes you a man.” Not the game alone. It surely isn’t winning. Winning is easy. Idiots can win, evil creeps can win, and they often do.

Pitch-and-toss was a game about throwing coins. It was played in the back alleys, illegally. It was the dirtiest game that Kipling could think of. And yet it was half skill and half luck. Dirty, ubiquitous, first some skill and then all luck—what a perfect metaphor for life’s “serious” games.

Losing the game yet not losing your composure, your self-worth, that is where manliness is forged. Not crumbling under the weight of near-total loss, that’s the manly part.

The poem “If—” was inspired by the fate of Leander Starr Jameson. He led five hundred men into the Boer republic in southern Africa, where gold had been found. Jameson expected an uprising that would invite British forces in. No uprising happened. His plan was sanctioned in London—and then disavowed. When Jameson failed, Britain jailed him. Yet still he didn’t turn against those who had turned on him. And so they still considered him a hero for trying.

I can’t shake the uneasy feeling that we might be needing a lot of this kind of manliness in the near future. We need more men that are men today.

The devil is hard at work today. His willing minions are plentiful. They aim to destroy what our forefathers built. And they are turning the frogs gay.

We will need to heed the example of Job, who truly was a man. Yes, the Job of the Bible, who is the epitome of not crumbling when everything around you is.

And so, my son, to be a man, be prepared to pray with Job:

Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: as it hath pleased the Lord, so is it done: blessed be the name of the Lord.

– Job 1:21