I’m standing at the edge, looking over, and it’s time to jump.
I wasn’t expecting this. My family and I were going on a river trip. After we carried out inflatable kayaks down to the waterline, the guide took up to a ledge 15 feet above a deep pool of water. It was up to us, he said, but if we wanted to jump, we could.
We had all stayed a careful distance away from the edge: no one wanted to fall in. But now we were being told the opposite; that we could jump. And that it’d be safe to land at the bottom.
I felt totally safe on the lip of the cliff, knowing I wasn’t going to jump. Then I handed my glasses off, took a step forward…and was flooded with a sudden deluge of fear. Each step would bring me closer to freefall, and my task was to either embrace it or walk away.
It would be the most fear I felt on the whole trip. The rest of the day would have its challenges and frustrations and moments of shock and danger. But they were understandable; the worst-case scenario was falling out of the kayak in nine inches of water and dealing with the indignity of getting back into it a few yards down the river.
Because I’m me, I took a lot of the river trip to think about stories of jumping, real and metaphorical, and who tells them.
It seems reductive enough to say there are two types of people: those who make that jump and those who don’t. Those who break through the second of primal fear and feel envigorated and alive and triumphant. And those who don’t, and live in the perpetual endless humilation of not trying something new.
In movies, we all want our main characters to jump. Movies are about characters making bold brave choices, and the leap into the water is a pretty perfect microcosm of those decisions.
But there aren’t just two types of people. Because after you jump, or after you don’t jump, there’s a story you get to tell about bravery, or about cowardice.
The movie person who jumps is normally a shy, scared person who finds freedom and self-actualization by jumping. And then they can tell the tale about the big life-changing moment when they jumped.
The actual fearless person? Who jumps like this on a regular basis? They don’t bother telling this story: it’s too commonplace for them. A tourist to New York City may tell a story about eating the famous hot dogs and pizza; the NYC resident who scarfs them every day doesn’t, since it’s just lunch to them.
Many people who don’t jump don’t tell anyone. They’re (per the archetype) overly cautious and ruined by cowardice and (per Theodore Roosevelt) cold timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
There are four groups, though: the fourth is the person who doesn’t jump and (lives to) talk about it. The real issue here for them is a lack of a story to tell: it’s normally as interesting a story as passing by a store selling lottery tickets and not buying one, as seeing a hot sauce tasting booth and not trying a dab.
But it’s one I’m telling.
I didn’t jump.
I’ve jumped at moments like this in the past. I’ve not jumped at other moments. This moment, I chose not to jump.
Life isn’t a two-hour movie. I wasn’t living a life of quiet desperation, with this the acid test to prove I was truly alive.
(Two days before the river trip, in fact, I was hiking in the woods and found what looked like an electric fence. I’d never seen one before. Only one way to find out: Yowch! Yep, electric fence. I’m good on doing dangerous foolish things.)
My wife chose to jump; good for her! One of my daughters jumped: good for her! My other daughter did not; good for her as well.
Now I need to make a story out of not jumping. It’s not as tidy of a story, and it’s definitely less familiar than “I did it and now I feel great!”
Here goes: We make a big point of telling our kids not to succumb to peer pressure. This wasn’t passing a joint at a party, and no one other than us pressured us. But that’s often enough pressure. I bet some people who jumped really didn’t want to. They just didn’t want to be seen by themselves as scared.
I’m okay with the face in the mirror I see. So I’m okay with not jumping this time. I’ve got nothing to prove to this face. There are way less scary things I hesitate on doing, and way scarier things I routinely do.
There are loads of scary things we don’t do in our lives. And true, we often don’t think about the roads not taken, unless we regret them or feel blessed to not walk down that road.
I’d feel worse about who I was if I regretted not jumping. But part of who I am is someone who’s okay with saying they didn’t jump.
Movies are stories about people in life-changing moments. But if you’re satisfied with your life, you don’t need to try to make any big changes. You’ve got nothing to prove to yourself.
SPIDER-MAN OF THE WEEK
Meme joke week!
MICKEY MOUSE OF THE WEEK
PRINCESS LEIA OF THE WEEK
SUPER MARIO OF THE WEEK
LITTLE FREE LIBRARY OF THE WEEK
I tested the water by putting some graphic novels in there. Vol. 1 of Girl Genius, and two Batman trade drawn by the great Jim Lee. Girl Genius is still there, btu the Batmans have disappeared. Coincidentally, I was able to give a copy of the Spider-Man book to Jim Lee over the weekend. He was mobbed (he’s Jim Lee at a comic book convention: he’ll forever be deservedly mobbed there) so I didn’t get a long leisurely conversation where I could bring up his popularity with whoever is patronizing the Little Free Library.
UPCOMING APPEARANCE
Only one left!
OCTOBER 17-19: BALTIMORE COMIC-CON, Baltimore, MD