Today I went to ‘Go Ape’, a simian-themed obstacle course which takes place 40-feet up in a forest. Kitted out with a harness, pulley and caribana, you traverse ladders, walkways, bridges and then shoot down long zip slides. You get a half-hour training course where there’s a thorough regard for safety. And if you’re thinking of going yourself, let me re-assure you the staff are very conscientious about safety; please don’t allow the fact that they’re not even able to spell the basic and fundamentally operative word ‘safety’ correctly on their company website disconcert you. The ‘saftey’ procedures they have in place are just as good. Although if you are of easily disconcerted temperament, then Go Ape is probably an experience best avoided. Personally I found the experience of being 40-foot high in the trees to traverse ladders, walkways, bridges and zip slides using only a harness, pulley and caribana to prevent you from falling to certain death - a disconcerting experience to say the least. In fact, having typed the word ‘caribana’, I have just noticed that my computer has drawn red squiggly line underneath it. That I have effectively had my life in the hands of something which my comprehensive spell-checker has never even heard of, is a even tad disconcerting in itself!
I am not usually bothered by thrills and spills and ‘white knuckle’ rides and the like, but kidding aside, I must admit I felt genuinely fearful. I suppose it might be something to do with having responsibility for your own safety. At least with theme park and fairground rides, you get strapped in, thrown about a bit then let off. With Go Ape, there are no instructors following you round, you have to attach the hooks (or ‘caribanas’ if you want to use the lingo) yourself, ensuring they are strapped to the each wire properly. This is not the easiest thing to do with a stinking hangover, but potentially fatal should you make a mistake. I shouldn’t really have been so worried. After all, there were even children partaking. I even overheard one lad of about 12 years old, whining to his mother about the hold up; getting genuinely impatient for the next life-risking death slide into a vertigo-inducing abyss (as he waited for me to check I’d attached my harness properly for the 512th time). But the little brat failed to appreciate my apprehension to take a literal leap of faith in my own safety preparation. It was easy for him, the horrible little git – at least he had his mom and dad on hand to check he was always attached properly.
So there – I admit it. I was scared. And the main reason I was scared must have been because I didn’t like taking responsibility for my own life. I would rather trust my own safety in the hands of some minimum wage students who are wondering how long it is till-clocking off time whilst strapping you in to the latest theme park ride and have no emotional attachment or investment to you at all, than I would in myself. What subconscious implications does this have on the way that my mind must live and work on a day-to-day basis? Is there a sadder revelation, than discovering at the core, I am a man who is effectively frightened to take responsibility for his own life? Well is there?
In real terms, yes there probably is. But then I’d probably have to strap a parachute to my back and hurl myself out of the door of a plane to find out what it might be. In what strange ways we willingly spend our leisure time!
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