I have a new worldview, this epiphany that free thought has brought to me, has got to be one of the most important and influential ideals that I've ever thought. No longer do I look at a pro-skater and hope to be like them, and wish I was them. I've come to the realization that I still can be them. I still can go out and learn how to skate better. I may never be as good as Tony Hawk, but I've got a shot. I still can be better and enjoy something I think is awesome. And that's just the thing. I've only got one shot. That's it. After this, its the end of the line, and I'm done. This world is such and amazing place, how dare I sit here and waste it away. I want to go skydiving. I want to skate half-pipes. I want to be the one in that shuttle.
Can you imagine? In space there's nothing. Just outside the station there's nothing! Just a vacuum of death and cold! You're literally nowhere, you could die any second! And the launch is such a carefully prepared thing. The shuttle could go down on its way up. What a horror that must be. Imagining my family's reaction had the shuttle blown up with me inside it. What it would be like...
What it would be like if we did make it though. For the people you love, in fact, every person on the planet to look up at you. You're the one in the sky, the heavens that so many people in the past had worshiped, the constellations. You're in the sky, you are, in fact, where people used to believe god lived. Amazing. As Richard Feynman said “You gotta stop to think about it, to really get the pleasure.”
Looking down, or thinking down,,, what would you think on the way up? Everything you'd ever dreamed of is right here. Everything you know and love, below you, and everything you've ever done has lead you up to this point.
If I were on that shuttle. If I had blown apart with it, then I'd damn anyone who dared to cry for me. There is no sorrow in that. Cry if you miss me if you must, cry if you think it's sad that a life was lost, but I want no pity. I went up on that ship, I followed my dreams and got to go where so few people have gone before. If YOU were the one that wanted to be aboard with me and didn't take the ambition to make it happen, then that pity should be for YOU. Cry for yourself. I would rather chase my dreams and gamble my life to live, than to let it wash away, dull and boring.
I've only got one set of parents. It's time I start acting that way.
I've only got one life.
I'm going to live it.
I pity those who never had the chance, those who grew up unfortunate, or were indoctrinated at a young age and live in a fantasy realm that enables them to raisin away their precious lives without realizing what an amazing and wondrous world is is out there. I wish everyone could, no, would feel this way. Because everyone has the capacity to. Growing up, they tell say you can do anything you want to in life, if you put your mind to it. I say if you knew the world for what it is, you would want to do everything you could do. Everything to make you feel alive.
I'm going to fly myself away on rollerblades. I dont care if I break bones.
I'm going to jump out of a flying plane. I won't fear a failing parachute.
And if I found a way, I would go up on that shuttle. I don't care if I die on the way up. I tried. I lived.
And don't you dare cry for me.
