I wasn't gonna blog about this, but I guess this was a long time coming. Yes, okay, I have to say Ironman 2 was a flop from what I think is the normal person's perspective. It got a lot of bang, but got slow in the middle, super-anti-climactic finale, and the plot was negligible. But I'm not a normal person, I'm a fan, and a big one at that too. Since the plot was largely non-existent anyway, I don't think I'm in danger of giving any spoilers. As usual with movies lately, I appreciate the jokes more than anything. In that department, I dare say Ironman 2 is second only to Batman. I think I read in Wired that this movie was made with fans in mind. That much was clear to me. Tony's line, "You wanna be war machine? Go ahead!" was a dead giveaway to me. That line wouldn't even register in a normal person's head. But I caught that line and I knew immediately the silver suit was gonna turn black. And turn black it did. I almost stood up and saluted.
But what I have the urge to talk about is not that. The one line that stuck with me [apart from War Machine's last joke] was when The War Machine dude came in to Tony's office and pleaded with him. "You don't have to do this alone, Tony!" Then, contrary to normal hero standards, Tony Stark didn't just repented and did the right and warm and fuzzy thing, like starting to trust his friends more and stuffs. Instead, like a normal person, he waved him off, "Contrary to popular belief, I know what I'm doing."
That line kept on going in my head for the past two hours or so. "You don't have to do this alone!" I have no idea how many times in my life have I been on the transmitting end of that line. But if I may be honest for a second here, everytime I say that to myself, nothing changed. Nothing ever changed. I would try to trust people more, involve myself with other people's "business" more, but I would always quickly high-tail it out of there, away from their personal sphere, and mind my own business. In my head I understand this completely. I need to need other people more, otherwise 20-30 years from now I'll die a lonely man, most probably in a one-bedroom apartment somewhere. I don't have to do this alone, I know that. I don't have to live life alone, don't have to shoulder all my burden alone, don't have to think through my future alone. I know all that. But you know, maybe the hardest gate to break through is not on a guarded fortress. Maybe it is hardest when it's a door deep in the privacy of your heart, and you hold the key. Heavy artillery will bring any fortress down, but maybe there's nothing the physical world can do to turn that key hanging on the padlock of your heart.
I don't like people touching the drum kit when I'm setting up, especially when I'm about to play. I like to do it myself, I like to have everything exactly where I want them to be, and I don't like having to explain myself about any of it. Nobody else needs to know or be concerned, it's my throne. If they dare to comment, they better be a heck a lot better than me. My normal reply to an offer of help would be, "It's fine, I got it." I'm a sharp cold steel blade. The samurai lived off a great principle. The samurai is also extinct.
It's easy to tell people to open up. But I can't tell you how horrifying it is, even just the thought of opening up when your heart is on the line. "But I opened up my heart and all I did was bleed." I say amen to that, pastor Jon. But it has to change. I can't keep on like this. One day, the world will become too much for this one person. One day this guy will no longer have all the answers to all the questions. One day this guy will fall and there will be nobody there to help him up. Something better change before that day comes.
In the end, Tony Stark didn't actually end up trusting anybody else either. Nick Fury certainly didn't really get through to him. Tony Stark didn't end up being anybody's best buddy by the end of the movie, and I don't think that's much of a spoiler at all. But I'm not Tony Stark. I don't have a metal suit to hide in, rocket boots to float in the sky with when I'm lonely, a metal mask to hide my bloodshot eyes after an insomniac night, and I got no villains to beat up to make me feel good about myself when I'm doubting my self-worth. So I gotta do something else.
A thought just occurred to me, and this might just take the cake. This whole thing I've been talking about, in a very symbolic way, I think this was also being "talked about" in the movie. Early in the movie Jarvis said, "Ironically, sir, the thing that allows you to live longer is killing you at the same time." The thing that's keeping me alive, this false sense of security, the "I can handle it" attitude, is also killing me at the same time, by getting me more and more reliant on myself, more and more alone. "Everytime it is used it accelerates the damage to your body", as Jarvis put it. Notice where this "thing" was? It was inserted into Tony's heart. As long as he had that, his blood intoxicity kept on rising up. See what happens when your "heart" is sick? You become toxic. You change it over and over again, but as long you keep replacing it with the same thing, you'll just get more and more toxic in the end. Noticed what changed Tony Stark's life? A change of "heart".
Didn't think I could ever say that about Ironman.
A cheerful heart is a great medicine
But a sad heart crushes the bones
It is not good for a person to be alone
.... because if he falls, then who's gonna help him get back on his feet?
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Walk On Air
There is this thing between me and heights. It's called Fear. I am known to fear tight narrow spaces, I'm claustrophobic. I'm also known to fear great heights, and not-so-great heights. This fact made today went really interesting.
So apparently some people decided to hook some wires and planks around some trees in a forest in Kumeu. Apparently they've been there for five years, and by a staff's own admission, not many people know them anyway. I went today fully expecting them to make me piss my pants. They didn't quite get there but they sure didn't disappoint.
Here's how it works. You go up a ladder, you grab on a wire, and walk along some cleverly-placed planks, rope, logs, wires, or combinations of them attached to various trees around the place, all the while always secured by not one but two locks to a thick wire to ensure gravity doesn't kill you. Repeat at different heights. That's about it. It's clever, simple, and a sure magnet for adrenaline junkies.
I'll be honest with you. Within the first two minutes I started thinking, what the heck am I doing here. The first course was probably two-three meters above the ground and I was scared out of my head. But of course, I wanted this to happen to begin with, that's why I was there in the first place, so I pushed ahead. At about the fifth obstacle I was still scared. In fact the fear never actually left me. But at that point, I no longer thought of quitting. I was there, up in the air, standing between two trees with a wire under my feet and another piece of wire I held on to at about chest level. My old breathing techniques came in handy as I forced myself to keep looking forward and not down. But that's kinda hard to do most times, when you're walking on planks set some width apart, they force you to look down to watch where you're stepping. Clever, as I said. By the second course I was finding my footing. I got used to breathing fast and gritting my teeth. I no longer hurried my steps. By the third course, my breathing techniques failed me, and I resorted to swearing black and blue into thin air. My "ssshhh...." were not attempts to calm myself down, I was swearing in acronym.
After the fourth course we took a break. This was a mistake. Then we got in there again for the second half of the thing, kinda like "the real thing". In the first thirty seconds of that I found the same quitting thoughts in my head again. I thought, I've done this before, only in slightly lower altitude, so there's no reason to stop now. I actually realized that they were recycling obstacle ideas at about course three, that all they've done is set up the same course slightly higher at every repetition. This had an amazing effect: the first time you go through something, you go through it really slow because you're really scared. The second time around, though it's higher, you don't take as much time because you're not that scared anymore, as long as the altitude increase is not huge. I think they lift things up about half a meter or a meter everytime. There's a lesson in there. The first time around you face a certain demon in your life, everything goes crazy. The next time you face it again, even if the stakes are higher, maybe it still scares you, but you've got the hang of it at that stage. It's no longer as paralysing as the first time.
When we were having a break, we noticed that most people that go through this go through them really fast. Most of them don't even hold on to anything. That's not recklessness either, it's perfectly safe. Life is so much easier once you believe that your fall, if you do fall, wouldn't be fatal. To me, I know the safety mechanisms are strong, I wouldn't break a leg or anything if I fall, I wouldn't even go down half a metre if I step off the platform as the chains will hold me. But still, being up there looking down with none of what I am used to have as "safety" scared me. It's a pseudo-fear. It's fear of something that isn't really there anymore. Much of my life has been lived that way. When you don't fear the falling down because you know it's not gonna happen, but you fear the height anyway, you know something in you needs to change. I understand that now. This year has been leading me up to this point, pounding this lesson into me over and over again in different ways until I really get it.
On the sixth course I got two kids going right behind me. They were really tailing me, right on my back. They were about 10 years old. Due to security measures and rules, there was a lot of waiting to avoid overcrowding on the wires and platforms. I was the last in our group to go, that's why I had these kids tailing me. They've been tailing us pretty much the whole day. As I stood on the platform, waiting for Lucko and Wulan to clear the next wire, I started talking to the kid. "Bro, you've done this before?" I asked, because he was so fast in clearing these obstacles. He said no, it's my first time. Later on I figured that he probably meant it was his first time on course six, he might've done the others before. I said "Sorry we're so slow ey bro, this is our first time, and I'm really scared." To my surprise, he politely said, "That's okay, I'm scared too". Somewhere along the line I was on this moving-log thing that I was so afraid of. Lo and behold, the kid was right there behind me, on the same log. I was scared enough when the logs were stable, let alone with a kid breathing down my neck hurrying me up without saying anything. I asked him, "Bro, are your parents near here somewhere?" He said no. I said, "That's good. Sorry about my mouth ey bro". Again, the ever-so-polite kid giggled a little and said, "That's okay". And I continued to swear black and blue into the air.
Much to my surprise, however, he started talking to me after that. "Woah that was freaky", he said after one obstacle, "now I don't know if I really wanna do course seven and eight after this." At one point he even asked me to help him move his safety lock from one wire to another because he wasn't tall enough to unlock them easily. That struck me rather deeply. This was a chance encounter. I didn't get the kid's name, and never will, as I quit at the end of course six because my arms wouldn't lift much more and grip was as good as gone. I was getting blurry and my mind wasn't there anymore at about halfway through course six, so I wasn't really there anymore by the end of it. But there it was, instant communication. Maybe it was the adrenaline, maybe it was the altitude, maybe it's just easy to get people going when you're ten-twelve meters off the ground with just a cable wire under your feet, I don't know. But it's there. Maybe communication is hard to maintain, as was the case with this kid. But it sure is easy to initiate. And everything starts with a beginning.
This whole thing reminds me of Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade. Do you remember what Indy got after he stepped [in faith?] off a cliff to a bridge that he couldn't see? The Cup of The Covenant.
So apparently some people decided to hook some wires and planks around some trees in a forest in Kumeu. Apparently they've been there for five years, and by a staff's own admission, not many people know them anyway. I went today fully expecting them to make me piss my pants. They didn't quite get there but they sure didn't disappoint.
Here's how it works. You go up a ladder, you grab on a wire, and walk along some cleverly-placed planks, rope, logs, wires, or combinations of them attached to various trees around the place, all the while always secured by not one but two locks to a thick wire to ensure gravity doesn't kill you. Repeat at different heights. That's about it. It's clever, simple, and a sure magnet for adrenaline junkies.
I'll be honest with you. Within the first two minutes I started thinking, what the heck am I doing here. The first course was probably two-three meters above the ground and I was scared out of my head. But of course, I wanted this to happen to begin with, that's why I was there in the first place, so I pushed ahead. At about the fifth obstacle I was still scared. In fact the fear never actually left me. But at that point, I no longer thought of quitting. I was there, up in the air, standing between two trees with a wire under my feet and another piece of wire I held on to at about chest level. My old breathing techniques came in handy as I forced myself to keep looking forward and not down. But that's kinda hard to do most times, when you're walking on planks set some width apart, they force you to look down to watch where you're stepping. Clever, as I said. By the second course I was finding my footing. I got used to breathing fast and gritting my teeth. I no longer hurried my steps. By the third course, my breathing techniques failed me, and I resorted to swearing black and blue into thin air. My "ssshhh...." were not attempts to calm myself down, I was swearing in acronym.
After the fourth course we took a break. This was a mistake. Then we got in there again for the second half of the thing, kinda like "the real thing". In the first thirty seconds of that I found the same quitting thoughts in my head again. I thought, I've done this before, only in slightly lower altitude, so there's no reason to stop now. I actually realized that they were recycling obstacle ideas at about course three, that all they've done is set up the same course slightly higher at every repetition. This had an amazing effect: the first time you go through something, you go through it really slow because you're really scared. The second time around, though it's higher, you don't take as much time because you're not that scared anymore, as long as the altitude increase is not huge. I think they lift things up about half a meter or a meter everytime. There's a lesson in there. The first time around you face a certain demon in your life, everything goes crazy. The next time you face it again, even if the stakes are higher, maybe it still scares you, but you've got the hang of it at that stage. It's no longer as paralysing as the first time.
When we were having a break, we noticed that most people that go through this go through them really fast. Most of them don't even hold on to anything. That's not recklessness either, it's perfectly safe. Life is so much easier once you believe that your fall, if you do fall, wouldn't be fatal. To me, I know the safety mechanisms are strong, I wouldn't break a leg or anything if I fall, I wouldn't even go down half a metre if I step off the platform as the chains will hold me. But still, being up there looking down with none of what I am used to have as "safety" scared me. It's a pseudo-fear. It's fear of something that isn't really there anymore. Much of my life has been lived that way. When you don't fear the falling down because you know it's not gonna happen, but you fear the height anyway, you know something in you needs to change. I understand that now. This year has been leading me up to this point, pounding this lesson into me over and over again in different ways until I really get it.
On the sixth course I got two kids going right behind me. They were really tailing me, right on my back. They were about 10 years old. Due to security measures and rules, there was a lot of waiting to avoid overcrowding on the wires and platforms. I was the last in our group to go, that's why I had these kids tailing me. They've been tailing us pretty much the whole day. As I stood on the platform, waiting for Lucko and Wulan to clear the next wire, I started talking to the kid. "Bro, you've done this before?" I asked, because he was so fast in clearing these obstacles. He said no, it's my first time. Later on I figured that he probably meant it was his first time on course six, he might've done the others before. I said "Sorry we're so slow ey bro, this is our first time, and I'm really scared." To my surprise, he politely said, "That's okay, I'm scared too". Somewhere along the line I was on this moving-log thing that I was so afraid of. Lo and behold, the kid was right there behind me, on the same log. I was scared enough when the logs were stable, let alone with a kid breathing down my neck hurrying me up without saying anything. I asked him, "Bro, are your parents near here somewhere?" He said no. I said, "That's good. Sorry about my mouth ey bro". Again, the ever-so-polite kid giggled a little and said, "That's okay". And I continued to swear black and blue into the air.
Much to my surprise, however, he started talking to me after that. "Woah that was freaky", he said after one obstacle, "now I don't know if I really wanna do course seven and eight after this." At one point he even asked me to help him move his safety lock from one wire to another because he wasn't tall enough to unlock them easily. That struck me rather deeply. This was a chance encounter. I didn't get the kid's name, and never will, as I quit at the end of course six because my arms wouldn't lift much more and grip was as good as gone. I was getting blurry and my mind wasn't there anymore at about halfway through course six, so I wasn't really there anymore by the end of it. But there it was, instant communication. Maybe it was the adrenaline, maybe it was the altitude, maybe it's just easy to get people going when you're ten-twelve meters off the ground with just a cable wire under your feet, I don't know. But it's there. Maybe communication is hard to maintain, as was the case with this kid. But it sure is easy to initiate. And everything starts with a beginning.
This whole thing reminds me of Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade. Do you remember what Indy got after he stepped [in faith?] off a cliff to a bridge that he couldn't see? The Cup of The Covenant.
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