Risks And Thrills

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I have nothing to write about today. Life is so repetitive and uneventful, which is probably why some people want to take risks to feel the thrills. And I have to say I did take some risks before, but none of the risks I took gave me any thrills at all. Probably something is wrong with me that I couldn’t feel the thrill while I should have felt it, or the risks I took don’t usually come with thrills, or some other plausible explanations. You be the judge. I really don’t know one way or another.

A Reckless Driver

I was once hired by a couple (just boyfriend and girlfriend, not married yet) to go to Boston to negotiate a business deal for them–as a translator mostly. Let’s just say the boyfriend’s name is B and the girlfriend’s name is G. B was the driver and he drove recklessly, ignoring stop signs, disregarding other drivers, changing three lanes at a time on Garden State Parkway. I was quite scared during the seven-hour ride to and fro, but it felt no thrill at all. It was very much an ordeal.

B and his girlfriend G sat in the front part of the car–B was the driver, and G sat on the passenger seat next to him. They were having a marathon banquet the entire time from New Jersey to Massachusetts. First they ate roasted unshelled pumpkin seeds, after that, cake, then unshelled sunflower seeds, then roasted unshelled peanuts. And of course B was driving while shelling the seeds and peanuts himself before eating them. His girlfriend could have shelled for him, but she was busy peeling an apple with a fake Swiss army knife. B was like a multi-task madman, who held the steering wheel with one hand, while talking to his girlfriend, drinking water, getting fed chunks of cake or fruit, shelling seeds and peanuts, chewing, laughing, listening to songs.

“Can you really concentrate on your driving like this? I mean I can shell the seeds or peanuts for you.” I said to them from the back seat, but G turned around to stare at me as if I was trying to steal her boyfriend. I was thinking to myself, “Poor woman. I mean women are so desperate to get a man that even if B is driving like an escaped lunatics from an asylum, G still cherishes him as a good catch and is fearful that he is being sought after by female competitors as desperate as she is. Of course B has skills and is assiduous in his trade, but being a good provider has an inevitable pre-requisite of being able to stay alive and avoid suicidal attempts while sitting behind the steering wheel, which B is not able to achieve.”

A Tiny Airplane

He was a non-Asian fellow student in the university we both attended. Anyway, he was taking flying lessons in a small plane. Each time, he would invite a female friend to accompany him. Once he asked me. I guessed it was because the girl who agreed to go with him suddenly had something else to do and couldn’t make it. So he asked me if I could go the next day. I had never been on a very small plane before. This plane was so small that there had only seats for four people, including the two pilots in the front–one was the instructor pilot, and the other was this fellow student.

Anyway, as soon as the plane took off, I felt a horrible headache and an urge to vomit. I immediately held a vomit bag in front me, but I couldn’t vomit. I felt that if I could, I probably would feel better. Anyway, for the entire one hour duration, I was having a splitting headache and a never ending desire of throwing up. Of course there was no thrill at all.

Chase After A Guy

Now I reflect on it, I realize that I should not have followed my instinct to chase after him. As a victim of narcissistic parents, I should never trust my instincts. Psychiatrists said that and I believe it. Since our instincts are so intertwined with our habits, a victim’s instincts are all messed up. A victim tends to have magical thinking and imagines a phantom love that’s not there in the first place; a victim tends to worship people who reject her; a victim tends to torture herself to cater to wishes of others. All these instincts (and many others) are wrong and should be examined with a big magnifier.

Anyway, I chased after this guy who didn’t reject me but who didn’t like me either. It took me more than a year to completely get over him. And the whole time I was so tortured and confused that I didn’t know what to do. It felt like a poker hand went wrong, but I kept doubling down on it.

And needless to say, there was no thrill in it. However, that doesn’t mean we should not take risks and I am going to elaborate on that later.