If you stare into the Abyss long enough the Abyss stares back at you.
What just happened?
A little bit of recent history for your information.
In the days preempting my sudden decision to do a sky dive (the second jump actually, the first being for my 30th birthday) I would have been comfortable describing myself as a pragmatic, atheist/nihilist. I remember being under an intense personal pressure to “face my fears” inspired in part by Ian Brown’s song “F.E.A.R”, but also I guess I was going through one of my regular ”fight club moments“. This is also the first time that I realized that I truly am a masochist. I had avoided that word in my inner dialog before now because of the obvious psycho-sexual quip that is a constant souse of humor in pop culture and which does not describe me very well at all “well maybe just a little”. Ok, I like a little pain but doesn’t everybody? 
Anyway It recently occurred to me that many people are naturally masochistic, it’s actually a part of the human condition it would seem. Doing some research into the word masochism a broader understanding of the word becomes clear.
masochism - noun
| 1. | Psychiatry. the condition in which sexual gratification depends on suffering, physical pain, and humiliation. |
| 2. | gratification gained from pain, deprivation, degradation, etc., inflicted or imposed on oneself, either as a result of one’s own actions or the actions of others, esp. the tendency to seek this form of gratification. |
| 3. | the act of turning one’s destructive tendencies inward or upon oneself. |
| 4. | the tendency to find pleasure in self-denial, submissiveness, etc. |
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/masochism
Ignore the first and maybe the last points and focus on the middle two, because that is what has mush broader implications for all of us.
If you consider them very thoughtfully it could be applied to many normal behaviors and also many psychological ailments out there. Bulimia, anorexia, anxiety, paranoia, even machoisum, the list goes on and on. Why do we humans so love to drink, smoke, take drugs, get into fights, gamble etc, Go on scary rides at a fun park? Do just about anything fun and you might be at risk of being a masochist. Still not sure? Then how about watching the evening news? Why bring such pain into your life? Watched any horror movies lately or thrillers? Actually watched anything lately? Tension is always the backbone of any good movie, play, book or television show and tension has a close cousin called anxiety. Bring me a person who isn’t a masochist on some level in some way. There are some people who are not, but they are very rare individuals indeed.
The promise
So on the day before I picked up the phone and booked myself in for the jump my inner masochist prodded me with a very lucrative promise, ” facing my fears and I would become the owner of myself and ruler of my destiny, along with it was a feeling of self worth, glory, even power! After all you’ve gotta die sometime right? So jump the chasm youve nothing to lose, do it!” I just needed some guts thats all. “Hmm” I thought. “easier said than done”. “The “Ego” is a very complex creature indeed, some times its actions are positive and sometimes plain dangerous, not all bad and not all good and this time I guess the Ego, “the monkey’s” cruel pleasures had gone to far.
Why was this decision to do the scariest thing I could imagine the catalyst for transformation? Looking back, I really don’t know. Maybe I had popped a diode, was it a crisis? One thing I can say for sure the Monkey would never have expected such an outcome, because it exposed its one true weakness to me and in doing so gave me the answer to how I want to live my life.
What happened?
When you stare into the abyss the abyss stares back at you. Friedrich Nietzsche
German philosopher (1844 – 1900)
On the way out the airplane door I pop an even bigger diode, this time that diode was the monkey itself! The one that had hidden my true nature from me for so long had vanished for at least a few moments. The monkey “metaphorically speaking”, crapped itself and ran away. In those first few seconds plunging headlong into the yawning abyss of fear and uncertainty that opened up before my startled eyes, all pretense promulgated by the ego now extinguished and a silence befell me like nothing I have ever experienced before, leaving what I now know as my true being, my real inner essence took in all that had been hidden my the monkey mind and at that moment I knew there was someone else inside me and not just the monkey I had identified with as “myself” all this time. I had to know what on earth just happened!
