[MD] The View from the Apex

[John Carl]

When you get to the top of the Big Dipper, the view you observe depends
mightily upon the kind of person you are.
Some see nothing but their laps and and knees and white knuckles clasped
around the safety bar over their laps and knees.

Last time I went, I saw the moon and fireworks and my daughters and the sea.
 And sailboats.  I looked around.  I'd been on before.

The view always changes, every time, and you always change, every time.  But
certain facts leap out.  You can see the whole structure underneath, You can
see the momentous drop just ahead and if you look back you see the anxious
excited faces of your fellow passengers on this short journey and observe
behing the dark cave you just left.

In the distance, near and far, is the sea.  Certain times you can see the
lights of Monterey, across the bay and much further to the west than you
probably pictured in your mind.  You get these maps on the wall and you see
a big indentation in the coast of California, right below San Francisco, and
it says "Monterey Bay", descriptively.  But when you pause at the top of the
Big Dipper and see the twinkling lights of Monterey in perspective to a
great deal of ocean and sand and people and lights up close, and it doesn't
fit your previous image of the scale of the bay.  It seems magical and
distant and much further west than you would have pictured.

But then, people walking on the Boardwalk take on a completely different
character altogether.  Up close they seem personal.  Individual.  One face
at a time.  Jostling with you in line for the cotton candy.  Up here they
are types and classes.  Couples, bikers, latinos, white dad and family on
vacation - their dog Spot on a leash.  From a distance, they fall into
cliche and classification.  You feel superior.  You are looking down.  You
see them, but you up above are not seen yourself.  You're at the highest
point of the Boardwalk, baby, and about to take a fall.

And all along, this constant force of gravity has been tuggin steadily at
the back of your shirt as your train climbs the stairs to the apex.  You've
been slowly winding up some sort of resistant spring in your positioning on
the planet.  And when you get to the top, the force you've been fighting
will shift to one you've given yourself to.  But right at the top, before
that occurs, you exist for a short moment on the cusp and balance of
opposing force, a singular moment of not-this, not-that that is
non-intellectual and experienced in every cell of your body as immediate
reality.  A thrilling moment that feels like being free.  A good moment, if
the view is good.

In our metaphysical journey, we too reach heights.  It's a cliche as old as
the hills.  Yet will always remain because it is so good.  Men who have
scaled the intellectual heights of consciousness bring back reports and
perspectives that are wonderful and enlightening.  Even more thrilling is
doing so for oneself, in a true and personal way.  And the view is always
good.  And the moment is always exciting.

But people do not live on the heights.  People live, farm, dwell in the
valleys and lowlands.  The moment on that cusp is always brief.  It is in
the nature of things.  You cannot take it out of context and polish it up
and serve it on a platter in some new-age-y package, stir in sincerity and
viola, instant enlightenment.  The apex occurs after a journey, an effort, a
climb.  At least on somebody's part.

Even as I rely on somebody else to build my roller coaster for me, I lean on
metaphysical struggles of other men; even more I rely upon the linguistic
tools and the mythological meanings of culture to construct my own meaning
in life.  When it all comes together in a moment of clarity, where things
are revealed as they more truly are, and conceptualization of larger
patterns fit old knowledge into new life, it is as exciting as a roller
coaster drop.  It is as good as it gets.

And one  fact that perspective brings to my attention, is that this is a
circle.  It has ups and downs, but in the main, it goes 'round and 'round
and always comes back again.  So even as I feel a rush at the apex of
excitement over a new idea, and I also experience a simultaneous twinge of
disappointment over the impending let down which follows so shortly,  the
fact that this circle will come around again gives me the freedom and
opportunity and motivation to relax and enjoy each moment for exactly what
it is.  With the firm memory of this perspective to hold me throughout the
ups and downs that I can see lie ahead.