LUCY AT THE FUDGE CONVEYOR

A brilliant student on his third lesson posed a question that I’d mulled many times myself but never heard aloud.  “The positives of soaring are too many to count,” he said, “but what should I be most afraid of?”

Hmm.  Takeoff?  Landing?  Traffic?  Weather?  I settled on the surest way to poop in any of these beds: “Not thinking… and not keeping up.”

Mind is the glue that holds the whole shebang together, and the fidelity of cognition governs risk.  Your own brain, left unattended, might be the single greatest threat, for it never stops cranking away whether anyone’s in control of it or not.  Most of what we do in life involves complex thought and favors precise action, but no activity demands continuous, extemporaneous improvisation in many dimensions more than soaring – all while we’re hurtling through the air at highway speeds with our very bodies at the tip of the spear!  Each moment presents new arrays of potential to either consider or ignore, crucial options to seize or dismiss, and even those choices require slivers of time to deliberate…  Tock tick.

Time not invested mentally is time lost.  Falling behind in the execution of ongoing processes invites a vile magic, accelerating time and ceding serve to the Devil.  As in takeoff for example.  Or landing, or traffic, or weather.  Or Lucy at the fudge conveyor.

Soaring is safe if you THINK concisely about what’s happening NOW, and it’s scarier than driving a car if you don’t.   Brrr!