Moments in Which I Reconsider My Life

Last weekend, I went camping with my coworker Maggie and some other friends since Monday was a Korean holiday. After a delicious Shabu-shabu dinner with some Korean coworkers on Friday night, I left early Saturday morning for Sunyoudo Island. We took a two hour bus ride to Gunsan, a taxi to the ferry terminal, and an hour and a half ferry ride to the island. The whole weekend was incredible, and aside from it being super windy, the weather was nice.

We had a campfire both nights and roasted marshmallows.

Everyone prepared delicious meals.

We rented bikes and rode them across bridges to explore all four islands.

Some of us went for a swim despite the Autumn chill. The Koreans thought we were crazy.

We climbed up an extremely dangerous mountain which Graham named, "Death Rock."

I want to expand on my experience climbing this mountain, because I had a bit of a shock which I don't want to forget. Let me state up front that I didn't make it to the top. When we were more than halfway up, we had to climb sideways across the mountain to get to the next rope. There were no real footholds or handholds, no ropes or harnesses, and at this point, I told the others to go on without me.  Then I sat there on the side of the mountain, hundreds of feet in the air, and I thought about my fear.

I want to include an excerpt from a lecture on spirituality I read a few weeks ago: 

"I’m going to tell you a story to relate this. Before I learned about Gnosis, I was in an earthquake. I always considered myself a smart kind of person, and on top of that I thought I could handle pretty much anything, but I learned—luckily—that I was completely wrong. I was in an earthquake in California and I was near the worst area. On the global scale it was not a big earthquake; there have been and will be much worse. I have had friends who have been in much worse ones than the one I experienced. Nonetheless, that experience taught me a lot. When that earthquake happened, I heard it coming. It is a sound you cannot explain; only someone who has been in an earthquake knows what it is. I heard it coming. In direct proportion to the arrival of that sound, my humanity left me. Psychologically, I became a mere animal: terrified, driven by instinct to survive. Previously, I thought I was a rational person and if I was to experience an earthquake I would not be afraid but would just have to go outside and there I would be fine. That rational response does not happen. I lost touch with my intellect, it was gone. I could not reason. Instinct to survive took over. Anyone who has been in a great trauma has had that experience, and knows what it is like."

I remembered this story while I looked down over the island and tried to stop shaking.  I knew my experience could not be as terrifying as an earthquake, but I had reached a moment where I'd lost touch with all my sensibilities. I had clung to the awkward face of the rock, my legs shaking horribly and my fingers trembling, my sneakers slipping along the crumbling indentations in the rock, and all that was left inside of me was fear.  I was certain I would fall. Once I had crawled back to a safer spot, I focused on my breathing and tried to calm down, because if I didn't stop shaking I'd never be able to climb back down off the mountain. There was only one way up and down. But relaxing was impossible as the fear of death kept racing through me. I couldn't be rational and take life moment by moment; I kept thinking of how I didn't want to die this way, I had wanted to do more, become a better person, I deserved the chance to do those things...

In summary, climbing death rock while out of shape and unprepared was probably the most foolish thing I've ever done.  However, I've realized through my direct experience that I have been wasting a lot my time not being the person I want to be, not doing the things I want to accomplish, because I think I'll live forever.  Obviously, I know that many of life's circumstances are out of my control, that anything could happen at any moment and I could lose everything I have, but I'd never been so fully aware of it as I was on the mountain. My experience probably won't have a huge impact on anyone else's life, but as I said earlier, it is one I want to always remember, so I've written about it here.