A Welcome Fear

Today I was interviewed for my life insurance application, pelted in the process with personal questions. Ironically, before we got to the health history inquisition, the Prudential representative clicked through a list of lifestyle questions.
“Have you received any traffic tickets for speeding in the past year?”
You’ve got to be kidding me! I am not going to be able to afford the pending premiums, I’m sure.
“Yes.”
“How many have you had in the past three years?”
“I don’t know. Four . . . five? Yeah, I think five. Let’s go with five.”
“Five?”
“Yeah, five.”
“Have you in the past 12 months engaged in any dangerous activities such as skydiving [and a list of random acts of stupid stuff] or plan to in the next 12 months?”
“Yes: bungy jumping, skydiving, and stuff like that. I’m going to New Zealand in December.”
“Have you ever done these activities before?”
“No.”
“How many times do you anticipate participating in these activities in the next 12 months?”
“Only once.”
Then came the question that has stuck with me. “What is the purpose of these activities?”
What I didn’t know until later was that she was looking for a categorical answer: business or pleasure. So, I answered, “Adrenaline?”
I get this question a lot. I don’t know if I’ve ever answered it the same way. It’s a fair question. I methodically plan my life, my to-do lists in two sets of Steven Covey quadrants. So, you’d think I could sum the trip and its death defiance into a tidy compound sentence.
Nope.
Part of it is the reward. I run on reward, on competition. You only have to see the difference in my grades as a home school high schooler and then as a college student for that insight. In grade school, I did 2.5 grades in one year for the stickers on my chart. When I’m in the sloughs of my busy auction season or the hard-to-motivate-myself slower times, the palpable incentive prods my fatty tissue. On the days when I seem to work for but a pay check—and that pay check deposits flat money anonymously into the ATM—its good to have a savings ledger to transcribe the growing hope.
Part of it is Timmy. We’re tight. At nine years old, he was the best man in my wedding. He’s at a critical stage in life, a place where I made mistakes—where he is, too. I want to show him the bigger picture of the world, to talk to him of the bigger picture of life. He was the only one willing to go with me, and he’s a HUGE Lord of the Rings fan. I’m not, but I want to show him I’m interested in him away from his superlative sports exploits. This is our first trip as men, as fellow guys . . . as not-kids. He’s heading off to college in less than a couple years and then into a career and who knows what. This could be a watershed time for our friendship, our spiritual lives, our existence.
After the incredible week I had with my kid sister, Emily, in Southern California and Mexico this summer—and where we are as siblings as a result—I want to take as many opportunities with my siblings as possible. On the other side of the world, where nobody knows us, candid conversations should sprout more easily.
Part of it is beaches. I’m not a big fan. I only can take significant time away from my demanding one-horse operation in December. So, if we’re going to stay warm, we’ve got to head south of the equator. I loved the Caribbean last December, but I’ve done that. Even in the Dominican Republic, I didn’t last long on the beach. I have to be doing something on my vacation—something that generates memories and pictures and stories.
There are lots of adventures in the Southern Hemisphere I hope to someday try: an African safari, an Andean trek, an Everglades swamp boating. So, with New Zealand the global Mecca for extreme adventure, I have to do it first—in case I don’t get a second or third or thirteenth.
But the actual activities . . . jumping out of an airplane almost 3 miles above the earth, bungy jumping 45 stories out of a cable car, base jumping from 63. Why?
It’s dangerous enough to be a question on my insurance interview. It’s scary enough to make me shudder late at night in bed as I think about equipment malfunctions. I’d be lying to say fear doesn’t register. I don’t think you can experience the thrill without it, maybe even an inversely proportional relationship there.
Even though the vendors are regularly safety checked, I find a gratification in cheating death. An immortal moment in a mortal life—ten days of such moments intertwined with the dramatic backdrop of the Southern Alps. It’s harnessing the laws of the universe—gravity, inertia, thermodynamics—taming the ragged edges. I imagine a sense of accomplishment mixed with the sentiment of survival, a potion that augments life and manhood.
Something in there makes me think future and different risks will be easier to meet having crossed these Rubicons. Most of our thrills include a ledge, a point of no return, a definite demarcation between have and have not. Hopefully from here forward, we will stand freer to choose “have.”
The skydiving outfit runs jumps from 9,000, 12,000, and 15,000 feet. There was no way I wasn’t going to sign us up for anything but the top thrill. Weather conditions may take it away, but not timidity.
See, that’ part of me, the persona I work hard to maintain—the creative nonfiction life I contend. It’s crazy pictures on ringo.com, the Christmas “letter” that makes people “tired just reading about your year.” My clients want a controlled crazy person to design their collateral and manage their advertising frenzy. New Zealand exploits are marketable moments; I even get to use my work-restricted drivers license down there as long as I write about the experience. So, ironically, there’s an almost pragmatic necessity. It goes with the Cooper and 30″ Mac, barefoot wedding and British mohawk.
After the insurance adjuster got off the phone, I consulted my local insurance agent. She told me her career took the fun out of everything, that she was always seeing risks. Even Christmas, she said, couldn’t escape . . . “Worrying about the Christmas tree lights . . . and whether someone will slip and fall leaving your house.”
I don’t want to live that way. Crossing “done thats” off our to-do list of stunts should impress the opposite into our lives, a respect for what we can’t control but a courage to meet life’s potential adventures.
So many people do this kind of stuff after a doctor has counted their days, when they want the most out of life, when inhibitions are few. What if we lived that way when the future wasn’t measured? What if we listened to all those sad country songs and Southern Baptist sermons about wasted years? What if the courage to spend life the right way could be expedited by the conquering of realistic fears?
What if the view from a parachute changed your perspective forever?