A part of me is still flying in the May afternoon, the sun declining and making me a human prism. No cape required.

What I wanted most from the experience of jumping was to know what it would feel like leaning out knowing I had to surrender and spiral out.

But what it has done over time is paradoxically make things more colorful while simultaneously making other things banal.

I’m trying to decide between bull riding and telling my manager he’s got a bad haircut. Both seem equally dangerous.

Someone quipped to me that once you see the Grand Canyon you can’t look at a simple yet elegant river without comparing it.

Many of our comparisons are subconscious. If you’ve ever experienced acceptance at its most basic level, it’s hard to deal with quibblers. If you’ve experienced unconditional love, anything less than surrendering to it feels like a violation. If you’ve learned something that challenges your core beliefs, it’s hard to believe that you aren’t wrong about a lot of other things, too.

I’m still flying and I’m not certain it’s to my benefit.

It incrementally brought back that feeling of detachment that was such a joy almost 20 years ago. Detachment allows you to have deep singular experiences, but it also paradoxically separates you from the turmoil.

It’s ego that tells me that it’s wrong to say, “People who jump out of airplanes don’t quibble over trivial.” Equally true is that once you lose a piece of your identity because of loss or recognition of how alone you can be when you don’t take care to dive into to mess of life, it’s hard to dial back in.

Someone also told me it’s not wrong to lean in and feel like I did something special, even if thousands do it each year. It’s on people’s bucket lists for a reason. Even if all I did was lean out and let go, allowing gravity to do the rest.

How many of us live life on autopilot anyway? Waiting for whatever happens to happen.

“Not changing is choosing.”

Love, X
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