Growing up I was very lonely. For reasons that didn't make sense to me at the time, I spent my high school years with virtually no friends. It is hard to emphasize the deep pain, humiliation and sense of exposure that I experienced. Predictably, without peer approval, I turned everything into a competition -- my goal became "earn respect by trying to be the best." With reckless, nearly compulsive drive, I poured all of my energies and efforts into whatever task the world asked of me. Luckily for me, there were only a few choices that had to be made during school years -- I could spend my time working and grinding, fighting my way out of my shame. I can recall thinking "If I only had a good group of friends, I will be happy."
Of course, what began as an exercise in self-improvement quickly became habit... Habit became bondage. I couldn't stop because I had formed a new identity in my "intensity" and I was terrified of feeling the shame of abandonment again. Even after my desire for a strong group of friends was met in college, I was so committed to a now instinctive and reflexive path of "being the best" that I felt no desire to stop. After college, I struggled mightily with my identity. Without the clean lines and orderly ranking that school naturally provides (classes and grades), I was lost for how to "earn my respect." It wasn't enough just to work at a good job, I needed to hang my hat on something else to seperate myself from everyone. Even after several years of comfort from close friends, I remained wary that the world might reject me again, so I sought out a new area to distinguish myself so I could have that to cling to "earn my respect." That is when I stumbled upon extreme sports.
See if I could no longer really seperate myself by academic achievements or athletics and since the real world no longer offered easy ways to compare myself to others, I would show everyone how fearless I was. In short, I would be the most reckless. I raced ironmans and adventure races, climbed mountains, went surfing in Mexico, jumped off waterfalls in the Dominican Republic and bought myself a motorcycle. I was utterly determined to "show off" how brave I was. I scoffed at people who didn't do these things as "weak."
Again however, what began as an exercise in seperation, quickly became habit... Became bondage. Pretty soon I was reckless about everything in my life. I was reckless for the sake of being reckless. I was quick to make decisions ("I never hesitate") in everything. I sought out risky positions in my career before I was ready. At the heart of all my actions was a fear of exposure -- a fear that the abandonment I felt in high school was deserved. I really wasn't worthy of being loved. Even after that had been disproven (through the love of my friends and family), I still carried the scars from that experience around like a perverse badge of honor. I self-indulged in the pain of my experience, using it as an excuse for my increasingly dangerous behavior.
Somewhat ironically, I was actually fulfilling the truth that I was working so hard to disprove. I was living like I WASN'T worthy of being loved by engaging in thoughtless risks. Who self-consciously seeks out risks for the "thrill" of it, but the man who believes his life has no meaning? (note: Let's distinguish between some forms exposure that might allow someone to be drawn closer to God by experiencing His beauty up close -- such as mountain climbing and other forms of risk, such as the ones I would take, that have no explicit purpose other than "risk for the sake of risk") There was no courage in my actions -- there was simply desperation. To add insult to injury, what I was doing not only fulfilled the truth I was attempting to disprove, but also revealed how NOT "different" I really was.
As Carroll Quigley observed about the generations in the 60's "speed, alcohol, sex, coffee, and even tobacco screened man off from living, injuring his health, stultifying his capacity to think, observe, or to enjoy life, without his realizing that these were the shields he adopted to conceal from himself the fact that he was no longer really capable of living, because he no longer knew what life was and could see no meaning or purpose in it. As his capacity to live or to experience life dwindled, he sought to reach it by seeking for vigorous experiences that might penetrated the barriers surrounding him. The result was mounting sensationalism. In time, nothing made much of an impression"
Only with the benefit of God's grace, can I look back and realize how misdirected my risk-taking was. My pride knew (and still does not know) any limit. It is only through the continuous process of confession that I can receive God's grace and follow Jesus in gratitude. Turns out my shame was justified... Living for myself is NOT a life worth living. Meaningless risks would never change that fact.
If I was looking for an extreme sport, I should have opened my heart to the gospel earlier. As Bonhoeffer writes, "The disciple is dragged out of his relative secuirity into a life of absolute insecurity, from a life which is observable and calculable into a life where everything is unobservable and fortuituous, out of the realm of finite into the real of infinite possibilities... It is nothing else than bondage to Jesus Christ alone, completely breaking through every program, every ideal, every set of laws. No other significance is possible, since Jesus is the only significance. Besides Jesus nothing has any significance. He alone matters."
I think I am going to go have a Mountain Dew and read some Scripture.
CPP
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