Near Death Experience At Angel Falls, Bass Lake

You Don’t Know You’re Living Until You Feel Like You’re Dying

It’s hard to describe the feeling you get when see your friend slip over the edge of some rocks and disappear into the unknown. It’s kind of like how the phrase “Holy Fuck!” would feel if it were an emotion. The last time my heart sank that low was when the Chargers lost to the Patriots 24-21 two years ago.  And that was just a football game that my favorite team had lost.  At this moment, I was losing one of my favorite people.   

Slightly worse than watching this

When the Chargers blew their home playoff game after arguably their greatest season ever, I laid in disbelief on my living room floor. When Ross slipped slowly off the edge of a rock face it was action time. Mike dashed down the side of the hill through the brush and I followed.  Tait, on the other hand, threw all caution to the wind and threw his body down the side of the cliff into a pool below.  Here’s more or less what the scene looked like:

Notice in the picture above how the rock face had two tiers.  Ross fell out of the pool in first tier and subsequently out of sight.  Tait jumped from the second tier into the pool Ross had just fallen out of.  Also Mike and I are not pictured because we were running down the hillside which would be out of sight in this drawing. It’s complicated.

So, to recap, we were all scared shitless. From our perspective our friend was gone over the falls and the stories of ’stupid kids’ dying on the rocks was suddenly becoming real. My throat was in my mouth.  My heart was outside my chest. My stomach was below my penis. I was a mess and trying to stay calm in the event of a rescue.

By this time, the full attention of every soul at the falls was directed towards Ross.  People’s hands instinctually covered their mouths and several girls turned their heads away. A man from below desperately shot up the trail to get a better view. God’s name was mentioned several times.

And, finally, after an agonizing 15-20 seconds, God responded.

Ross calmly appeared on some flat rocks below, out of danger. There was no blood, no scars, no concussion.  He stood rubbing the back of his head as if nothing had happened.  He followed it up with a thumbs up to the whole crowd.  At this point, Jesus’s name was thrown around in sighs of relief. 

Somehow, Ross had managed to guide himself into another, smaller pool, below the ledge he had slipped from.  When I came down to see how he had done it, I got an indication of how narrow of an escape it had been.  A few more feet to his right or left and he would have almost certainly broke something (see picture below).  Even scarier, he could have knocked himself out and been swept into the pools further below without hope of rescue for several minutes. Needless to say, when Ross was back at our sides, I gave him a hearty pat on the back.

The interesting thing about this experience, besides everything, was the fact that Ross and I had been discussing the greatness of doing dangerous things.  Both of us had been reading a lot of Jack London, and consequently, had been wanting and almost desiring fear.  Minutes before, we talked of the benefits of forcing yourself into scary situations.  Living uncomfortably anyone?

To use a  cliche, you get what you ask for.  I was pretty well frightened and Ross was in another realm of scared.  He was in a struggle for his life.  For all he knew death was on the other side of those rocks and he used every ounce of his strength to deposit himself in the safety of the small pool below.  And in that moment, Ross probably felt more alive than most people ever will in their lives. 

You don’t know you’re living until you feel like you’re dying.

In those intense 15 seconds of battle, Ross felt the pulse of life.  He felt his entire body fight for its continuation.  Every inch of him pushed against death; the thing we are all most afraid of, behind public speaking of course. Ross was aware of his life and consciousness because they were in immediate jeopardy.

Most of us go through our lives in complete safety and comfort.  A stubbed toe or traffic can ruin a whole day for us.  There’s no time for reflection.  There’s no time to think about how easy we have it.  Our ancestors battled everyday. Each waking moment was a fight against the Wild.  There was a sense of accomplishment when the day was over and they had survived to see the next.

Now the only battle is deciding which fast food restuarant to cram our faces with each night. Our own mortality is not on the forefronts of our mind.  Death is something that happens 50-60 years from now.  We’re not fighting against its wrath everyday.  Thus, everything can wait.  Life can wait.  We can push things off until tomorrow.  And then what happens?  We end up not living at all. We end up lifeless because the life within us never gets exposed. 

I understand that life is relative. This is what our lives are like today.  Our ancestors lived their lives how they did because that was their environment.  But they had no time to think about how sad or boring their life was because they were constantly living it. I doubt anyone commited suicide long ago. We have too much time to think about how much our lives suck because everyone else drives a BMW and we’re stuck with a Toyota Camry.   

This is why I still believe it’s good to put ourselves in scary situations. Even after I saw Ross almost die, I can’t help but see the brilliance in it. It’s good to know how great it is just to be alive (there are now 70 cliches in this article; can you spot them all?) So, I say, us middle and upper classers need to seek out some relativity!   

I don’t know if the take home message here is fall off cliffs.  I can’t really advise anyone to put their life in danger so they too can feel alive.  But I will say that it’s a good for a person.  Ross walked away unscathed and with a story to tell for awhile.  He also walked away with a new perspective on life.  Everything has to be a little bit sweeter now.

What do you guys think?  What kind of things can we do that wont necessarily kill us, but make us feel more alive?