The act of self-slaughter is, essentially speaking, the greatest expression of free will. To kill oneself demonstrates complete agency over oneself and one’s physical being, exhibiting absolute personal autonomy. However, such a demonstration may be regarded as somewhat extreme and also self-limiting as once your absolute free will has been expressed it is simultaneously extinguished. So, what is the die-hard evangelist of self-determination to do? A possible, marginally safer course of action might involve reckless endangerment where at least there is a margin for survival. Not one for half measures, I have decided to fling myself from the open hatch of an airplane flying at thirteen and a half thousand feet, strapped to another man so as to best put to the test the weight limit of a flimsy fabric umbrella on steroids with which I have trusted both our lives to. This demonstration of my personal autonomy has cost me €280 with the Irish Parachute Club in Edenderry, Co. Offaly. This stunt, whilst also providing great fuel for an article, will most certainly crown me king of self and absolute agent of my own free will.
However, a small voice residing in the back of my head protests and simply asks, “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING?!?”. I suppose the simple answer might be that I’m not and that I’m merely on the fool’s errand of young man’s reckless hormones seeking danger and excitement with little or no regard for my own personal safety. It can be argued that labeling this jump, as an ultimate expression of my free will is a pseudo-intellectualization of my idiocy so as to make it seem less wasteful if I should die.
I will be shitting ever increasingly larger bricks until the point where my feet leave the floor of the plane and I am falling through the atmosphere at which point I will (hopefully) experience a ‘Nirvana-esque’ level of calm as I plummet towards the earth.
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The internal debate over whether I shall jump or not jump is ultimately moot as the fact of the matter is that I’ve already paid my €280 and I’m not prepared to lose that based on anxiety and I’m also jumping with my friend Dave so there is an informal yet binding social contract present too. Although I must admit that the simple issue and existence of the internal dispute has intrigued me and coaxed me into researching my anxiety over the jump. My research, namely just talking to my Dad who has some knowledge on the subject and who is, for the record dead set against me jumping drew my attention to two very interesting theories.
Essentially speaking Approach Avoidance Anxiety works by allowing our anxiety only to build up to the point where escape or avoidance is a possibility.
The first is well-documented human response to stress known as Approach Avoidance Anxiety (AAA). Essentially speaking AAA works by allowing our anxiety only to build up to the point where escape or avoidance is a possibility. As soon as avoiding the subject of stress becomes impossible our anxiety levels will begin to wane as we begin to realize that it will have to be faced and dealt with. To put this in the context of my jump I will be shitting ever increasingly larger bricks until the point where my feet leave the floor of the plane and I am falling through the atmosphere at which point I will (hopefully) experience a ‘Nirvana-esque’ level of calm as I plummet towards the earth.
The second theory is Personal Construct Theory proposed by the American psychologist George Kelly. He argues that the means by which we view the world can be broken down to the tripartite relationship between anticipation, experience and construct, the means by which we construe our experiences in the real world. Our anticipation of an event will more often than not be inaccurate. We will either build the event up to an unreachable level and we shall be disappointed by the outcome or the opposite of this where we are pleasantly surprised. The experience is the actual event that has been anticipated and it will either surmount our anticipations or disappoint us. A prime example of this relationship is Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Quite a few people will admit to enjoying Christmas Eve more than Christmas Day, as the actual day will rarely quite live up to the idealized Christmas experience that we have anticipated all Christmas Eve. Thus Christmas Eve becomes a more enjoyable day as we are allowed to believe in a hyped up, impossibly perfect Christmas Day unspoiled by the reality of an imperfect Christmas Day either spoilt by drunk relatives or the turkey being too dry (Mam, don’t worry the turkey is always perfect!).
Now the impact of this relationship comes to fruition in how we construe our experiences in the real world. If Christmas doesn’t live up to the anticipation of Christmas Eve then this will have a run on effect whereby the person will often admit to preferring Christmas Eve to Christmas as the experience of the actual day was a disappointment. The means by which we construe our experience will then have an effect on how we anticipate things in the future so to some degree it is self-regulating. Once more to put this theory in the context of my jump, as the days pass and I draw nearer to my jump I become increasingly anxious and this affects how I anticipate the jump will go. Broadly speaking: I believe I might die. The experience is the jump. If I survive, the experience has surmounted my anticipation and thus I will construe that I am immortal, or at the very least, Jesus; therefore, I will more than likely sign up for a second jump where I will anticipate that I shall live. However, if I die on my second jump which I thought I would survive I would, frankly speaking, no longer have the capability to construe my experience in any way possible but if I did it would affect how I anticipate my third jump.
Although whatever for the pessimistic and fatalistic tone of this article I must admit I am bounding with excitement for the 21st of September, the day on which I jump. As someone who openly admits to preferring Funderland to Alton Towers because you actually see the bloke with three fingers, one eye and a suspicious quivering tick belting you in on a cold January morning in the RDS as opposed to the brilliantly safely engineered ‘thrill’ rides in an English forest, I hanker for real danger and get my kicks from it and that’s why I’m jumping. I didn’t even opt to raise money for charity; this jump is a selfish pursuit of dangerous excitement and if you should see me writing in the second issue of The University Times you’ll know that it was a wonderful success.
