New Zealand Travels (April 5th, 2003) Thinking about the Bungy

Rode the bus to Queenstown, adventure capital of the world, after doing a bit of emailing and photo updating. Queenstown is home to the first bungy jump by AJ Hackett off the 43m Karawau suspension bridge.

Needless to say, the Magic Bus pulled up beside it to offer us the chance to see various hapless souls flinging themselves off the bridge with only a rubber band to stop them from hitting the river. So we watched, and I had to ask myself the question: "Do I really want to do this?" And the answer came back as an uncertain no. All the time I was standing on the observation platform I was trying to convince myself to both do the jump, and not to do the jump. Each decision had its own arguments, but in the end my time ran out and I had to leave before I had reached my decision.

It wasn’t simply a matter of feeling the Fear, I was concerned that the only reason I had an interest in doing a bungy was purely because of peer pressure. I knew that Fear, directly, would not be able to stop me, so (personifying a little here) maybe my Fear had changed tactics so that it would suppress desire, rather than instigate a gut churning, sweaty, uncomfortable feeling.

I couldn’t tell, so I had to figure it out.