Thrill

Have you ever jumped off a high object into water? It's scary. You know that if you land wrong, you could really hurt yourself. As you fall, you have to make sure your body is straight up-and-down as you enter the water, with your arms held close to your chest so they don't get wrenched out of place. It is thrilling.

The feeling of fear as you stand at the top is the only way I can conceive of the fear that Steph Davis describes. She knows her body can do it, but that the consequences of failing are catastrophic. That feeling of fear -- the exhilaration mixed with terror -- is special. And it is a feeling that only comes with risk.

Most good things I can imagine existing in Heaven (or the new heavens and the new Earth or whatever). But I cannot imagine risk-taking being a joy we will experience in Heaven, at least not to the extent that it is possible on Earth right now. I could be way off, and it's pure speculation, but that's just what I think. How could risk exist without pain and death?

I don't have fully-formed thoughts on this, and I am confident that Heaven will be better in every respect then the current fallen world. But for now I know that while I'm here on earth I want to savor the thrill of taking risks. I don't mean that I want to be reckless, and I'm definitely not gonna go free solo climbing anytime soon. But in moments when I feel that top-of-the-diving-board sensation, I find myself simply pausing to let the feeling wash over me. When Heaven comes, I may never feel it again.

Waste

I've been thinking a lot about the value of a liberal arts education. Much of this has been brought about by reading these two articles (WARNING both are VERY crude, and you do not have to read them in order to understand this post. Just wanted to put them out there cause some of these ideas are from the articles, not my own original thoughts):
http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will-make-you-better-person/
http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2012/11/hipsters_on_food_stamps.html

Basically, both articles (particularly the Last Psychiatrist article) are critical of people who do not have valuable skills to offer society. College is a chance to acquire some extremely valuable skills, and people who spend college studying anthropology, English, philosophy, etc. are essentially squandering their best opportunity to learn something practical (engineering, medicine, business, etc.) that can actually help other people in a quantifiably valuable way. In fact, the LP article goes so far as to say that college is really not all that necessary, as long as one learns a practical skill somehow.

I find myself highly sympathetic to this line of reasoning. As an English major, I feel like there has to be something intrinsically valuable and helpful to society about a liberal arts education. Yet I can't think of what it is. Anybody can learn to read and write well; you don't need to go to school for it. I'm open to the idea that I offer less to society than a doctor, engineer, etc.

The thing I can't get out of my mind is formal logic. For the hundreds (perhaps thousands) of years that people studied formal logical systems, more practical-minded folks must have considered these logicians to be totally wasting their time. Until computers came along. Computers are basically just machines that read and execute instructions written in formal logic. All along the logicians/mathematicians through history were unwittingly teaching us computer programming. What if they had all quit to do something more practical?

O'Connor

stuff Flannery O'Connor says:

"I believe that there are many rough beasts now slouching toward Bethlehem to be born and that I have reported the progress of a few of them, and when I see these stories described as horror stories I am always amused because the reviewer always has hold of the wrong horror."

"...total non-retention has kept my education from being a burden to me."

"If my mother were to come in [while I read St. Thomas] and say, 'Turn off that light. It's late,' I with lifted finger and broad bland, beatific expression would reply, 'On the contrary, I answer that the light, being eternal and limitless, cannot be turned off. Shut your eyes,' or some such thing."

"I believe and the Church teaches that God is as present in the idiot boy as in the genius."

"The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it emotionally. A higher paradox confounds emotion as well as reason and there are long periods in the lives of all of us, and of the saints, when the truth as revealed by faith is hideous, emotionally disturbing, downright repulsive. Witness the dark night of the soul in individual saints. Right now the whole world seems to be going through a dark night of the soul...I must say that the thought of everyone lolling about in an emotionally satisfying faith is repugnant to me."

Serve

When hanging out with other people, I often worry about what they think of me. The whole experience can be very stressful, especially when with people I don't know very well: I'm afraid of saying the wrong thing, being judged, or getting embarrassed. The experience is very similar to lying. I am trying to maintain one central assertion ("I am likable"), which I believe to be untrue. Soon I am constructing a web of truths, half-truths, and white lies, all designed to reinforce this assertion. The weight of this web is heavy, and at times crushing.

But when I'm thinking about how I can serve people, all the stress evaporates. I start enjoying the people I'm around. I care for them instead of being afraid of them; I want them to get to know me instead of be impressed by me. And I suspect I'm a lot more fun to be around.

It's a subtle difference because the desire to please someone is very similar to the desire to serve someone. But the two drives are completely different, as is my experience of them.

22-Stair

When asked in a later interview about these attempts, the teenage David Gonzalez said, "I don't care if I die."



Say what you want about David, skating, recklessness, helmets, etc; who of us has something we would die for? And when was the last time that willingness was tested? What if we were all this committed to what we do?

Relatedly, ask yourself which professions will still exist in Heaven (or the new heavens and the new earth or whatever your eschatology). Police men, lawyers, doctors, politicians, kings, garbagemen, repairmen, maids? I don't think so. If anything, it will probably be something closer to painters, musicians, athletes, skaters, graffiti artists, sculptors, and surfers.

Cover Band

If I was a high-powered executive making tons of money selling some random product, I would struggle deeply with feeling like my life was worthless. But if I was in a really good 1980s metal cover band, I would genuinely feel like I was doing something of eternal significance. Is that weird?

I don't really care what I do, specifically, with my life. Long-term I don't really care what job I have or where I live. I just want to do something to either inspire people, serve people, reflect God's image, or change the world. And if I can't do any of those things, I'd like to at least use my life to help shelter others (even briefly) from the cold darkness of the world. To be a cozy fire to those who are freezing -- a shade for those dying in the desert.

Cliche

The brilliance of an author doesn't lie in the profundity of her thinking. It lies in her ability to say the profound without using a cliche -- cliches are all most of us have.

Regret

People (including me) sometimes refuse to take risks for fear of regret. But I've never regretted any risk I've taken in my life. Think about the biggest risks you've taken. How many of them do you honestly wish you'd never gone for? When trying to decide whether or not to take a risk, I don't think fear of regret should play as big a part of the discussion as it usually does.

Incidentally, I suspect that for most people, sin is the biggest source of regret in life, maybe followed by missed opportunities.

Roller Coaster II

Life is like riding a badass rollercoaster that crashes a lot -- dangerous, uncontrollable, scary -- but way more fun than the kiddie rides.