There Are More Things in this World Than You Have Dreamt of...

A friend of mine was holding a ladder for someone in a tree. That guy got a little careless (I assume), walked out on a branch, the branch broke, and that man is now paralyzed. I think he can still use his arms. He's fourty something with a wife and 2 kids.

The fall happened right in front of my friend. On the phone he told me that for at least a month after the accident all he could see was chuck (not real name) falling every time he closed his eyes. He sounded pretty nonchalant about it while telling me.

I write this as a reaction to Aak's experience. I blogged once before about being mugged/going through an extreme experience. What does that do to someone? I told Aak over gchat that this biking thing is exposing him to a whole range of human experience. (Roommate and I were talking last night about how he's becoming a pugnacious badass, a la "Fuck you!" Personally Aak is NOT like that. We became friends through playing chess and scrabble together.) But that concept of human experience is such a tepid abstract for me while reading about stuff here on a laptop. I'm reminded of the legions of young men in the early fourties who signed up excitedly to go out and fight a war in Europe. It seems romantic and educational, but I haven't been there.

People always ask me if I know Tyler Durden.