IT’S a strange feeling when it happens, in fact there’s not much stranger, First one seems rather in control, in a normal state of mind you might say. One’s body is busying itself about various things. Some are contributing to moving it up a piece of rock. No hurry, of course, there is a clear distribution of labour. Climbing a rock may stimulate certain primitive urges, but these have become somewhat suppressed of late and for the most part their appeasement is something of a chore the rest of the mind goes through from time to time. But calculations have to be made – there are little things like safety to consider. So a sum is performed and suddenly a part of my mind knows, and, hanging on my arms, I turn and grin, incongrously, at my second and say: "I’m coming off."
So what should I do? Jump? And while I am thinking these things and while the strength drains from my arms like water, my mind changes state.
Then the time for decision is past, for I am climbing down and across – ten feet to the runner – and though thoughts still circle on the surface they have no effect, for my mind has fragmented and while time stands still, miracles are performed.
I must be off now! But tiny holds are jugs and shattered fingers tempered steel. Reach down for the next hole, a side pull. Feet move with precision where before they searched in vain, I stand aside for a while and watch as seconds stretch to centuries and my small tired body climbs its way to safety; and I wait for the inevitability when the rock blurs upwards into space and this new world becomes the old, or ends.
The picture dims as the mind concentrates towards the distant runner. The rock moves sluggishly in jerks and bounds, and fingers grab and slowly open out I reach again, step down, feet slide and stop, then fingers clutch a little hold and fumble slowly as time expands and the picture crystallises, the blurred edges moving inwards towards enormous fingertips braced trembling on the finely sculptured grey knobble with patches of lichen scraped by newly broken nails, and the mind goes numb, the first joints become fuzzy as in each new instant of time they open out .html fraction and move closer and closer to the edge of reality. I reach down again, the rope hauls upwards at my waist, sliding through the runners a bit and I stop swinging and look down, grinning sheepishly, but my second looks somewhat strangled so I clip a sling into a nearby runner and stand in it.
So the change has passed, The mind is back in phase with normality and relaxes for a while, gently easing away the effects of being driven to its limit. The chemicals coursing through the bloodstream are gradually dissipated and from the brain the memories of fear and desperation are erased until only happiness and elation remain – after effects of one of the two most powerful emotions it is possible to experience. For danger is both the antithesis and the dual of sex. Both are primal instincts, bred into us through survival. Both in their climaxes involve the totality of mind and body. Yet they start at opposite ends of the scale of human motivation. While we seek the one we avoid the other – the duality corresponds to that between life and death. It is only by experiencing both ends of the scale that one proves that one is what one claims to be – a being capable of survival, Only at these extremes are the full forces of the body combined to a single uniquely important end. If one never samples the threat of death and one’s mind never changes from the dispersed operation of normal life there remains a big question mark, and the basic and most principal capabilities of the mind are never tested.