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Moonduck · 12-11-2003, 10:59 AM

I've had three events.

Had an "almost died" experience in high school involving a Jacob's Ladder I'd built from an industrial transformer out of a furnace (2 million + volts, a whole lotta amps). It was pulled off the table and hit me in the chest. Tossed me against a wall double-quick and nearly killed me. Made me rethink a lot of things in my life. I decided that schoolwork was not the basis of my existence, that I needed to have a life outside school. Grades suffered, happiness flourished.

A few years later, I spent four hours on the phone with a good friend, talking him out of suicide in the middle of the night. It got so far that I heard him rack the slide on the gun. I started yelling anything I could just to get him to stop and think it over. I succeeded, or he did, depending on how you look at it. He's a surgeon now. I figure that I may have saved a whole lot of lives as every person he saves might've died if he'd commited suicide that night. It made me think about the consequences of my actions, and how small good can lead to very large good, just as easily as small evil can lead to great heartache.

The third event was the transition into parenthood. When my daughter was born, it was as if I was plunged into an ice-cold mountain stream. I saw the world with a new, and frightening clarity, realizing, for the firs time that I was not the single most important thing in the universe. I learned that to really honestly care about someone, you have to place them higher in the order of importance than yourself. It even deepened and improved the relationship with my wife.

There is anothe event, that I did not refer to above. I didn't list it becuase I didn't learn much of anything. It did shake my world though. When our son was born, he wasn't breathing. It took everything he had just to draw breath. The doctors weren't sure how it would turn out, and we didn't get to even hold him during the first three days of his life. It all turned out fine and he's unscathed and a happy, normal little boy, but I have never felt such shrieking, inconceivable terror and helplessness in my life. They say fear is the mindkiller, and I know what that means now. You don't really know fear until you're a parent.

12-11-2003, 10:59 AM	#13 (permalink)
Moonduck Junkie Location: SE USA	I've had three events. Had an "almost died" experience in high school involving a Jacob's Ladder I'd built from an industrial transformer out of a furnace (2 million + volts, a whole lotta amps). It was pulled off the table and hit me in the chest. Tossed me against a wall double-quick and nearly killed me. Made me rethink a lot of things in my life. I decided that schoolwork was not the basis of my existence, that I needed to have a life outside school. Grades suffered, happiness flourished. A few years later, I spent four hours on the phone with a good friend, talking him out of suicide in the middle of the night. It got so far that I heard him rack the slide on the gun. I started yelling anything I could just to get him to stop and think it over. I succeeded, or he did, depending on how you look at it. He's a surgeon now. I figure that I may have saved a whole lot of lives as every person he saves might've died if he'd commited suicide that night. It made me think about the consequences of my actions, and how small good can lead to very large good, just as easily as small evil can lead to great heartache. The third event was the transition into parenthood. When my daughter was born, it was as if I was plunged into an ice-cold mountain stream. I saw the world with a new, and frightening clarity, realizing, for the firs time that I was not the single most important thing in the universe. I learned that to really honestly care about someone, you have to place them higher in the order of importance than yourself. It even deepened and improved the relationship with my wife. There is anothe event, that I did not refer to above. I didn't list it becuase I didn't learn much of anything. It did shake my world though. When our son was born, he wasn't breathing. It took everything he had just to draw breath. The doctors weren't sure how it would turn out, and we didn't get to even hold him during the first three days of his life. It all turned out fine and he's unscathed and a happy, normal little boy, but I have never felt such shrieking, inconceivable terror and helplessness in my life. They say fear is the mindkiller, and I know what that means now. You don't really know fear until you're a parent.