My friend Duncan Werner has sent me a link to a brief but outstandingly informative article that I would like to share with you all. It offers a great deal of helpful, practical advice about what to do should you find yourself unexpectedly free-falling from the stratosphere. Not only is the essay chock-full of encouraging tips and pointers, it’s a nice bit of writing, too. Here is how the author, one David Carkeet, sets up the situation:
Let’s say your jet blows apart at 35,000 feet. You exit the aircraft, and you begin to descend independently. Now what?
What, indeed? You or I would probably be pretty glum at this point, but this is nothing we can’t handle, the author reassures us:
Sure, you’ll take a few hits, and I’m not saying there won’t be some sweaty flashbacks later on, but you’ll make it. You’ll sit up in your hospital bed and meet the press. Refreshingly, you will keep God out of your public comments, knowing that it’s unfair to sing His praises when all of your dead fellow-passengers have no platform from which to offer an alternative view.
I recommend that all of you drop what you’re doing and read this item at once. (Unless, of course, you were about to spend some more time poking around in here. Do that first.) If you don’t read it now, you’re sure to forget, and sometime later, plummeting through the azure void, with your laptop hibernating happily back in the overhead compartment, you’re really going to kick yourself. Just remember:
The perfectly tiered Norfolk Island pine is a natural safety net, so if you’re near New Zealand, you’re in luck, pilgrim.
One Comment
Puts me in mind of when I read the book Think and Grow Rich wherein we find that famous phrase, “What the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve!” to which I replied, “But when you jump off a cliff it still really, really hurts when you hit bottom.”