Oy. It's just come up for me...with the same page as from several days ago...and it's not updating, and I can't get in to "force" an update. Hopefully all problems will be fixed by Saturday evening...

Maybe.

Brian's going on a ski trip; he's never gone skiing before; I've never gone skiing either, either water or snow.

What I loved most on a snowy day was one of those saucers you use as sleds, because there was no way to control its path. It had all the thrill of Russian Roullette. It wasn't if you would hit a tree...it was when.

Perversely, that was part of the fun. You didn't have to pretend to have skill. You didn't have to master the sled, or the ski. You threw your life to the whims of chance...and often ended up, by a treetrunk, the breath literally knocked out of you.

Odd feeling, trying to breathe, and not getting the full effect. Very odd indeed.

Also odd is the realization that I too am not immune to the thrill-injury. That in me is the same thought that drives the bungee jumper, the Evil Kneivel, the drag car racer...the rush of putting your safety in the hands of chance.

That a life unrisked...isn't living.

It's a sensation to which I thought I was curiously tone-deaf. It's odd to realize I too have known that thrill.

I too have succumbed to that sort of momentary insanity.

Of course, a lot of people live for that sort of feeling. That it's the only thing that makes life worth living. The andrenelin rush of risking things just for the high of it...

Of course, such people tend to die younger than others, for andrenelin rushes sooner or later wear out the heart, but they would argue, they've lived a fuller life than others...

That it's not the length of life, but the sensations you get out of it, that make for a life. And many would at least partially agree with them...after all, what would be a protected and cacooned life be like, where you never risked anything, never fell in love, never took a chance?

There's certainly a point there...

On the other hand, some people look for bigger and bigger rushes...daring much, but never satisfied. It's basically following an addiction, looking for that which gives them an andrenelin high, and they're never satisfied.

Sooner or later they die, searching for that greater sensation...always hungry, always questing...

Maybe finding adventure in small things is better.

Maybe realizing every role has its own built-in challenges if you just look for them, and finding contentment in that...might be for the better for most of us, the part of wisdom.

The hardest thing I've ever done in my entire life is to constantly watch after two autistic children at once, with all the things they can get into and destroy, with their own foibles and such, while also paying attention to a third...to the point that after Jamie died, it was like I had lost not just a son, but a high...a co-depedency "high" of being at "peak" at all times...

But the andrenelin rushes there were few and far between---Jamie walking outside when the door was accidentally left unlatched, that sort of thing, the things that every parent experiences.

Brian doesn't need my help now, and although I watch Eric, he doesn't get into trouble anywhere as much as Jamie did, and a part of me not only achingly misses Jamie but a much more mundane part of me misses that "peak" experience...of constantly helping three children, two badly handicapped...

I wonder if special ed teachers and helpers feel this...? I doubt it, since it's their job. They probably just feel grateful when the end of the day comes.

Still, let us not underestimate the other rush. For without the rush of thrill-seeking, would Sir Edmund Hillary have climbed Everest, would Columbus ever have discovered the New World, would Glenn orbited or Armstrong gotten moondust on his boot?

Would we have done anything at all?

I think the better part of wisdom and happiness is to find adventure in the small things...but thank goodness some disagree with me.

Philosphers find happiness for themselves. The restless and the insecure find new things for all of us.

And for those of us who prefer to spend our times in our armchairs...please note that I prefer to read tales of adventure, and I do a webcomic in which danger and discovering new things is it's reason for being.

I get my thrill-seeking....vicariously.