If You Stick Your Neck Out You Might Get Struck by Lightning

Photo by Photo Lily on Unsplash.

The global giraffe population between 1996 and 2010 was around 140,000 (that sounds really low, doesn’t it?). In that time there were 5 fatal lightning strikes on giraffes¹.

In the USA an average of 23 people have died from lightning strikes per year from 2012 to 2021². At the time of writing this there’s a population of around 337 million people in the USA³. Let’s round it down to 330 million.

If we calculate the number of deaths per 1 million giraffes/humans per year, we get a fatality rate of 2.55 for giraffes, and 0.07 for humans. So if there were 1 million giraffes, 2.55 would get killed by lightning each year.

Giraffes get struck by lightning at a rate that is about 36 times higher than humans.

In conclusion: sticking your neck out means you are at higher risk of being struck by lightning.

But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it.

The giraffe’s neck allows it to survive, finding food beyond the reach of other animals.

Sticking your neck out as a human isn’t quite as essential. It’s not a choice of finding food—mostly it means we open ourselves up to the judgment of others. We risk blows to our ego, or shunning from the group.

For some, this is enough of a deterrent.

They fail to realize that this risk is the price of entry.

Photo by Red John on Unsplash.

Not taking risks is how dreams die.

We don’t want to be called stupid. We don’t want to be proven wrong. We don’t want to face failure.

If we’re perpetually stuck inside our zone of comfort, we’ll never reach the places we want to go.

The dreams we have will wither, forever remaining just that: a dream.

Vampires might lie in wait when you step outside.

In many vampire stories, the curse of the undead spreads through biting a human’s neck.

Sticking our neck out feels like inviting a vampire to latch onto it. To partake in our blood, resulting in our transformation.

But maybe this infection is not always a bad thing?

Photo by Igam Ogam on Unsplash.

I know, in my case, some of the abilities of a vampire don’t sound half-bad. I wouldn’t mind being able to turn into a bat, or having extraordinary strength.

Hell, I already can’t tolerate the sun due to the red hair in my genes, so what’s not to like? The whole garlic thing might be a little too much, though.

What if you exposed your neck, got bit—and a new idea took hold?

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1. https://www.sciencefocus.com/nature/giraffes-lightning

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning

3. https://www.census.gov/popclock/