it wasn't that i wanted to die i just

didn't care if i did

life and death were equally meaningless

to me equally neutral two sides of the

same coin that i would have happily

passed by on the street without picking

up

i was raised lutheran protestant

my parents and whole family were

extremely strong faith it was the

centerpiece to everything we did it all

all the sacraments the traditions the

rules the beliefs from top to bottom

when i was young the protestant doctrine

was just another truth of the world it

was as real and as true as why you look

both ways before you cross the street

as a young child your family is your

only real snorkel to the universe what

else are you supposed to believe other

than what the people who taught you how

to talk and act entire shoes and

everything else say

as i got a bit older though like most

teenagers do i started to question

everything most of my friends weren't

nearly as strong faith if they were at

all and some that were were of an

entirely different faith that

fundamentally contradicted mine it all

felt increasingly strange to me

increasingly hard to make sense of as

the reality of my family and childhood

collided head-on with the incompatible

reality of the world

at its core it was hard to disagree with

many of the moral ideals of

protestantism and christianity the

ethical righteousness the communal

kindness the forgiveness and discipline

but even at this age a lot of this stuff

just seemed like common sense to me and

as i got even older it seemed like these

parts didn't even really need faith at

all it was only the obscure big picture

stuff that really needed faith the parts

about god's will and grace salvation

what comes after death and what the

point of all this is

by the time i was 17 or 18 i had pretty

much realized that all of these parts

all the parts that depended on faith

were nonsense

soren kierkegaard wrote faith simply

means what i am seeking is not here and

for that reason i believe it

but i didn't believe anymore i didn't

believe one could believe in something

they didn't know for any good reason

other than desperation or lack of

authentic alternatives

i didn't believe in the scripture or god

i didn't believe there was any purpose

to life i didn't believe in an afterlife

i didn't believe in anything

following this period of my life i lost

all concern and became fairly reckless i

just wanted to do anything that would

potentially numb the nothingness of

being

as far as ways to potentially go i have

to believe this might be one of the most

interesting to realize you're in your

last moments of life while in free fall

must be one of the most poetic

sensations to intersect the human mind

initially when the main parachute failed

naturally i panicked a little but with

the backup parachute it felt more like

the panic that would come from falling

off a rock climbing wall while wearing a

rope i just needed it to catch me

after gathering myself a little i pulled

the cutaway handle and disconnected the

main parachute this immediately sent me

spiraling out of control though i

managed to restabilize myself enough and

pulled the reserve handle for the backup

parachute
nothing happened

i pulled at it again

still nothing

i don't know how many times in different

ways i pulled on it from here but i was

essentially just violently and

desperately yanking at nothing

there was nothing there to catch me

the feeling at this point was so beyond

describable your brain just can't

comprehend what is happening it panics

itself into an almost psychedelic state

of mind

there must have been just 40 or 50

seconds or so between me and the ground

i know it probably sounds like the most

cliched thing one could say here but

those 40 or so seconds lasted for what

felt like hours i don't mean to say that

just as some sort of expressive

hyperbole but i literally mean they felt

like they slowed into hours or even a

whole day perhaps a more accurate way of

putting it would be that time seemed to

almost stand still or no longer even

really exist at all

in the past i've read various works of

philosophers who argue that time is a

feature of the mind and not actually a

property of objective reality itself an

experience like this really makes you

take that seriously

merely because of my state of mind time

changed and almost disappeared

i wouldn't say my life flashed before my

eyes during this but in some impossibly

strange way items from my life seemed to

fly past me as if they were floating up

from earth's surface into the sky as i

approach the ground in super slow motion

i saw my dog my brother several of my

current and old friends my bike my

ex-girlfriend my computer my favorite

pillow my phone my car random pieces of

clothing sentimental possessions i've

held onto things i have hanging around

my apartment walls items from my kitchen

some of my favorite foods alcohol

bottles i saw dollar bills and credit

cards paperwork and other miscellaneous

items they all flew up and passed me

into the sky

at first as i watched these items drift

up and toward me i found myself thinking

about what i had already known now in my

adult life with death approaching

millisecond by millisecond inch by inch

its impending nature elucidated by this

immediate physical exemplification all

these things that were passing by were

about to be gone forever

not literally per se of course they

would outlast me physically but in the

sense that they existed in their form as

i knew them exclusively inside my head

and since my head was about to be no

longer neither would they

and so all of these things my life the

way i saw and understood everything in

but seconds would ultimately not matter

at all it would all go nowhere for

nothing

but yet despite this as these things

seemed to drift past me

i watched in agony

i had the sudden awareness that the

distance between me and the ground was

the distance between me and never seeing

my dog again never seeing my friends

again never meeting a new friend again

nor girlfriend or spouse never entering

into my apartment or home at the end of

a long day again never walking down a

street again never tasting food again

never experiencing any item or person i

had ever known again

we all know as a concept that eventually

we will do everything for the last time

there's no surprises here but knowing

this as a verbal construction versus

staring its truth dead in the eyes as it

approaches you from your feet and

seconds away is a totally different

thing

in this moment i not only felt the

survival instinct of my unconscious mind

kick in but i also felt an immense

despair and desire for life on the

conscious side of my being as well this

may seem less than interesting to you

but to me seeing as how for the prior

several years of my life i was convinced

that life didn't matter and i didn't

care if i died or not the fact that

everything mattered so much in this

moment even something as simple as just

the kitchen spoon i prefer to use was

revelatory

i realized in all of this that the

significance of these items the

significance of my life was not about

what it all meant beyond me or beyond

this life made clear by the clarity of

death even though none of it was coming

with me into the ground it all still

mattered

the meaning the significance came from

me while i was alive

it was around this moment that i sort of

came back too definitely not fully but

at least more than i was

in perfect irony though i realized

simultaneous to realizing that i

actually wanted to live that it didn't

matter that i now realized this there

was no hope i was falling at 200 feet

per second toward earth's ground

but yet despite this

i tried anyway

i flattened my body and tried to slow my

descent as best i could i scanned the

area around me and located a nearby

lining of trees and aimed toward it more

and more the trees grew from what looked

like one large mass of moss on earth's

surface to individual separate objects

growing in size and detail without even

thinking i positioned myself upright put

my legs forward back straight shoulders

up hands on my head

then

black

it felt like i was passing over to some

other realm of existence i remember

thinking to myself in one burst of dim

consciousness perhaps i was wrong

perhaps there is an afterlife

but in another subsequent burst some

time later i realized unless they carry

you to heaven on a stretcher in a

helicopter i was either hallucinating

dying or somehow

surviving it was mostly all black again

for a while

i awoke in a hospital bed several days

later

how could i have possibly survived such

a thing you're probably wondering

why did i what does it all mean

admittedly i wrestled with all of these

sorts of questions for a period of time

after but one of the many things i

realized from this whole absurd incident

is that things don't have or need grand

reasons or explanations beyond

themselves

why did i jump out of an airplane why

did my parachute fail why did my backup

why did i survive how did i why did i

think about skydiving in the first place

why was i born as someone who became

someone who did why was i born someone

at all why was the world and universe

these questions ultimately get you

nowhere with nothing but that's just it

you don't need them to go anywhere with

anything as long as you are here

that's where all questions and answers

ultimately start and end anyway

you here and now

the leap of faith in life i now believe

i've discovered is not in believing that

some meaning or point exists beyond you

or this life there is likely nothing to

hope for or believe in after the moment

of impact but the real leap of faith is

in believing that what exists down here

on the ground right now what you can

know and experience while you can know

and experience

is enough

i do not want to found anything on the

incomprehensible i want to know whether

i can live with what i know and with

that alone

wrote what has since the incident become

one of my favorite writers albert camus

i have not become naive i know there is

no hope for any grand gesture or

reconciliation of life i know it is all

for nothing everything made futile

mocked ultimately by death's approaching

supremacy

but the question is can i survive in the

face of this hopelessness

can i care and try anyway

i did it once already

i leaped from the abstract realm of the

heavens fifteen thousand feet up and

landed down on the material earthly

grounds of reality and survived and with

reason to

my story is a hymn for the absurd

[Music]

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