Heights. Man, goddamned heights.
Mt. Masungi, if you're too lazy to click that link, is a georeserve consisting of a limestone mountain range. Touring the entire thing will occupy the better part of your day, and getting there will occupy the rest, if you're going to come from nowhere near the Philippine National Capital Region area. If you want to prove to yourself that you have some sense of self-worth in the world and are, contrary to popular opinion, not just a waste of space and carbohydrates, please, go. (And complete the trail, that is.)
You will have to cross these bridges, among many other activities that would cumulatively make you wish you were a better person. Or that your carbohydrates weren't so cowardly.
And if you did cross them (or think that there's nothing to it since you're not afraid of heights anyway), then give yourself a fucking medal, sir, for... Whatever that accomplishment is. Me, personally? Hell. I seemed to have developed a fear of heights when I was younger and wasn't looking, so going through these things required that I turn off some part of my brain and that I just pay attention to how my sister also has a fear of heights, and that we were buddies in the mandatory buddy system, so that I just kept saying "Buddy?!" for the entire tour. The fact that our group ate the bananas that were meant for the end of the tour at the beginning of the tour only because we didn't know any better only contributed to how unhinged my brain was that day. Having a mother-of-God-what-else-can-happen-to-me caterpillar on my bag at the exact moment when we were supposed to rappel down a cliff with nothing but rocks hundreds of feet below just so that we can have a stable landing on a rope bridge also below did so many things to my head that I just went ahead and resigned to whatever else this tour is.
The lesson in all this hyperbole?
Nothing. Just that crossing bridges is one bitch of a demand, since, as I painstakingly described, unlike a very high roller coaster or even a Ferris wheel, you will have to propel yourself forward. My best friend said that the trick was to have people behind you who were themselves waiting for you to stop pissing your pants, just so that you can cross the damn thing with the proper sense of shame and consideration (only because she's that kind of person), but me, I maintain that the trick is to hold several perspectives in your head while forgetting that you're disregarding others. Meaning, in the same way that you ignore the condensation droplets on your bathroom mirror after a shower just so that you can look at your face, you pay attention to the solidity of the rope bridge, but not what is underneath it.
Most importantly, knowing that there is a drop below is the very thing that should prevent you from paying attention to that fact that there is a drop below. Trust where your feet are at present (because they are after all at present perched on something, no matter how insubstantial) and not anything else, i.e., where the rest of you could be if your feet took a misstep. It is an exercise in phenomenology - pay attention to where you are, not where you could be. Pay attention to where you are, and then where you are next, and next, and next - rope, rope, rope - so that what could have been - fall, ground, death - does not happen. Forget that you're in some ways deluding yourself so you can move away from that which requires the delusion to begin with.
It's a bastardized phenomenology, yes, but goddamnit, heights, man. Heights.
Or, in Pratchett - grounds. It's not the heights that kill you, it's the ground. But don't pay attention to that just yet. For now, you are hundreds of feet up in the air.
And, in acknowledgement of your carbohydrates, you are up in the air, and then the next moment still up in the air, and then the next, still up there - hey - you're doing fine. Float all you can, sir - you're fine.
You will have to cross these bridges, among many other activities that would cumulatively make you wish you were a better person. Or that your carbohydrates weren't so cowardly.And if you did cross them (or think that there's nothing to it since you're not afraid of heights anyway), then give yourself a fucking medal, sir, for... Whatever that accomplishment is. Me, personally? Hell. I seemed to have developed a fear of heights when I was younger and wasn't looking, so going through these things required that I turn off some part of my brain and that I just pay attention to how my sister also has a fear of heights, and that we were buddies in the mandatory buddy system, so that I just kept saying "Buddy?!" for the entire tour. The fact that our group ate the bananas that were meant for the end of the tour at the beginning of the tour only because we didn't know any better only contributed to how unhinged my brain was that day. Having a mother-of-God-what-else-can-happen-to-me caterpillar on my bag at the exact moment when we were supposed to rappel down a cliff with nothing but rocks hundreds of feet below just so that we can have a stable landing on a rope bridge also below did so many things to my head that I just went ahead and resigned to whatever else this tour is.
The lesson in all this hyperbole?
Nothing. Just that crossing bridges is one bitch of a demand, since, as I painstakingly described, unlike a very high roller coaster or even a Ferris wheel, you will have to propel yourself forward. My best friend said that the trick was to have people behind you who were themselves waiting for you to stop pissing your pants, just so that you can cross the damn thing with the proper sense of shame and consideration (only because she's that kind of person), but me, I maintain that the trick is to hold several perspectives in your head while forgetting that you're disregarding others. Meaning, in the same way that you ignore the condensation droplets on your bathroom mirror after a shower just so that you can look at your face, you pay attention to the solidity of the rope bridge, but not what is underneath it.
Most importantly, knowing that there is a drop below is the very thing that should prevent you from paying attention to that fact that there is a drop below. Trust where your feet are at present (because they are after all at present perched on something, no matter how insubstantial) and not anything else, i.e., where the rest of you could be if your feet took a misstep. It is an exercise in phenomenology - pay attention to where you are, not where you could be. Pay attention to where you are, and then where you are next, and next, and next - rope, rope, rope - so that what could have been - fall, ground, death - does not happen. Forget that you're in some ways deluding yourself so you can move away from that which requires the delusion to begin with.
It's a bastardized phenomenology, yes, but goddamnit, heights, man. Heights.
Or, in Pratchett - grounds. It's not the heights that kill you, it's the ground. But don't pay attention to that just yet. For now, you are hundreds of feet up in the air.
And, in acknowledgement of your carbohydrates, you are up in the air, and then the next moment still up in the air, and then the next, still up there - hey - you're doing fine. Float all you can, sir - you're fine.
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