I wonder why humans are so fascinated with scary experiences. With controlled scary experiences, especially: experiences like roller coasters and swimming with sharks and jumping off bridges with only a rope to keep you from dying.
When I was 18, we went to the Sunderbans to see the tigers. We didn't end up seeing the tigers, but I experienced something pretty damn scary anyway: total and utter darkness. On a small boat, in pitch darkness, in a crocodile filled marsh, in winter. I am not exaggerating when I say that I was scared for my life; but more than that, I was horrified at the thought that my phone might fall into the dark water.
Recurring nightmares of my phone falling in played before my eyes. I even imagined myself jumping in after it to save it and emerging victorious, but with a phone which would no longer work; alternatively, I imagined being unable to find it, interspersed with mental images of being eaten by crocodiles and dying a painful death- or worse, surviving, to get beaten up by my tearful mother.
When I wasn't thinking of my phone falling into the water possibly leading to death or hypothermia, I was staring at the stars. Man, they do not joke when they tell you that the stars without city lights are beautiful. There are so many of them, and it's a crazy, crazy experience leaning back (over a crocodile filled cold river which could swallow my phone, don't forget) and watching them crowd each other out of the sky, and just think (and fear death and hypothermia and phone-loss), or rather, not think, just look and have dazed conversations with your brother, while your parents worried about getting you back to dry land.
I'm not sure what the point of this post is, except I feel like posting something other than favourites, and this is something I'd like to remember.
~Sam
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