donderdag 28 oktober 2010

The roller coaster experience

I love roller coasters. No, I don't love roller coasters; I love what my mind does during a roller coaster ride.

A roller coaster ride is a typical example of a situation which is unrealistic or absurd. How strange it may sound, but I do not assume that our bodies and minds were evolutionary programmed to deal with being swung around, turned upside down, stop and turn in quick succession. I realised this all the more when I was in Amsterdam and was levitating upside down above the city.
In an absurd situation such as a roller coaster ride there are several possible reactions. Mine however seems to be of utter relaxation. My brain cannot really comprehend what is happening with my body, the information it has to deal with, seems both dangerous and utterly unrealistic. Before I am on a roller coaster there are feelings of excitement, maybe anxiety even , but once it's started that's over. It feels like I stop trying to comprehend what is happening, and relax into it. My brain just lets it happen instead of running scared or protesting.

Now, this "roller coaster experience" (brain: "dude! this is so weird, I'm not even gonna try, but let's just enjoy it.") is expandable. For example: "Kafka on the shore" was a roller coaster experience. The surrealism in this book went past the comprehensible. Trying to understand the why and how of this book would only cause terrible head aches.
I found the same works for social experiences. Absurdity works. Create an abnormal social experience and I seem to get along easily, keep my calm and stay relaxed. Perhaps even enjoy it. "Go along with the ride," so to speak. I even thrive there.

This is part of why I enjoy surrealism, fantasy, art, riddles, mind breakers inevitability, randomness, or infinity . If I cannot understand something, when a certain border is crossed, I cease to question and I cease to be scared. I am curious about my borders, how far can I go? Where are the limits? I must be careful not to view most experiences as interesting experiments.

So life, give me what you got, I'm just going to enjoy the ride.

1 opmerking:

  1. An interesting ideology. I'm wondering, is this why certain people make good writers? Because they are able to cease caring about realism and just write? Or alternatively, is this why people (the both of us?) are good at pure logic and deduction? "All humans are blue. Pete is human. What colour is Pete?" Or, closer to home, the truth of something (colour) completely depends on the definition of truth and the definition of whatever you're concidering.

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