January 27, 2011: “Being”
If humans were meant to fly, we would have been graced with wings. If humans were meant to swim, I would have grown flippers by now. So why is it that looking out a window on the sixth floor of a building I have an almost blinding urge to jump? Why do I desperately seek that feeling of falling, that feeling of floating, that feeling of absolutely nothing at all?
I think that really is the ultimate goal, after all, the feeling that isn’t a feeling. The feeling that jolts your stomach when gravity suddenly gives way and there is no up or down or left or right, no pressure, no push, no pull. There is nothing, it is a pure nothingness, as if the world itself had evaporated from beneath you. You simply exist, no up, no down, no right, no wrong. It is a peaceful existence. And then you crash.
You crash to the floor under what feels like twice your weight. The floor that thirty seconds ago did not exist is now your worst enemy. The pressure becomes almost unbearable, it becomes difficult to breathe, to even lift your hand, impossible to lift your head. Your mind focusses on breathing, forcing the stale air in and out of your lungs. You focus on survival, everything else is blank. All that matters is breathing, all that matters is surviving.
Do not faint, do not get sick, do not move. Keep calm, keep still, and breathe; it is the only way to get through the pressure. If you make it through the pressure, if you survive the crash, after what feels like eons of agony you will be released. You are released into the nothingness once more. Allowed to exist in the non-existence. You are floating freely. It is a feeling only known once; it is not a feeling at all.
It is being.
