It was unchivalrous of the reader to leave poor Ol' Boonie on that mountain, in dire need of succor and rescue. Let's see if we can improve on the situation. It's easy to look back on any emergency with a humorous perspective, and even to imagine yourself heroic; nevertheless, at the time, the situation seemed serious and scary, and you probably acted in a bumbling manner.
Spinning out on a dirt/gravel road near the top of a mountain isn't a true emergency in the sense of rolling backwards, jack-knifing, and demolishing your rig. But at first it felt like it. I had never experienced this before. It's so easy for the mind to run away with fearful possibilities and scenarios. To make matters worse, my van and trailer were blocking anybody else from going by. Oh how hateful these fat-ass rigs are! I decided right there and then that my next trailer will be a 6 foot wide cargo trailer, and the next tow vehicle will have the width of a Nissan Frontier or Xterra.
It was acutely embarrassing to block the only route for the half dozen houses at the top of the mountain. This exacerbated a sense of panic. There was no cellphone service right there, so I couldn't call my towing service. (And remember, you must be on a graded county road for the service to owe you help. I'm not sure it was an official county road.) Even if a Tow Truck were there, it couldn't drive around me; it could only push on the back end of the trailer. Would that even work?
I even considered backing down the mountain, at least to a point where I wouldn't be blocking other motorists. Backing down? A yellow light started blinking in the back of my head, because I recognized a pattern of behavior from an emergency or two in the past. This is where it really got interesting. Panic is caused by the Imagination running riot, which makes it your worst enemy; worse than the physical situation itself.
But Imagination is also necessary for Experience to win out over Panic. Somehow you must step outside your own skin, and imagine somebody else -- some pitiful fool who is not your real self -- displaying a pattern of thinking that is trying to make a bad situation worse. Recall the great Truth of Weaver's Ideas Have Consequences: "the apparent does not exhaust the real." It was only my "apparent" self who was stuck on that mountain. My "real" self was a quality, a noun, called Experience.
In our pampered era, we tend to use the term 'emergency' when in fact we are only in a "tricky situation." Most real disasters are actually a sequence of distinct mistakes. In all likelihood, you are still one or two mistakes away from a true disaster. Your all-important mission is to first arrest the downward spiral NOW.
Commenter, George, mentioned the similarity of accident emergencies and medical emergencies. Recall the great aphorism of medical ethics, primum nil nocere, 'first, do no harm.' Until a century ago, just about any medical problem was a scary emergency. It's easy to see why there was tremendous pressure on the physician to "do something."
Stepping outside myself, "I" saw a fool trying to "do something" at all cost, despite not having experience about backing down mountains. Yes, there were pro-s and con-s to backing down, but this other "Self" asserted itself, and said that this was not the time to experiment with a new technique. Happily I resisted the self-fulfilling prophecy of Panic.
This "negative" agenda must succeed first. Recall the old Latin poet's aphorism (Horace) that 'Fleeing vice is the beginning of virtue.' Yes, it's just the beginning. Now it was time to implement a "positive" agenda. That will have to wait for part III.
Spinning out on a dirt/gravel road near the top of a mountain isn't a true emergency in the sense of rolling backwards, jack-knifing, and demolishing your rig. But at first it felt like it. I had never experienced this before. It's so easy for the mind to run away with fearful possibilities and scenarios. To make matters worse, my van and trailer were blocking anybody else from going by. Oh how hateful these fat-ass rigs are! I decided right there and then that my next trailer will be a 6 foot wide cargo trailer, and the next tow vehicle will have the width of a Nissan Frontier or Xterra.
It was acutely embarrassing to block the only route for the half dozen houses at the top of the mountain. This exacerbated a sense of panic. There was no cellphone service right there, so I couldn't call my towing service. (And remember, you must be on a graded county road for the service to owe you help. I'm not sure it was an official county road.) Even if a Tow Truck were there, it couldn't drive around me; it could only push on the back end of the trailer. Would that even work?
I even considered backing down the mountain, at least to a point where I wouldn't be blocking other motorists. Backing down? A yellow light started blinking in the back of my head, because I recognized a pattern of behavior from an emergency or two in the past. This is where it really got interesting. Panic is caused by the Imagination running riot, which makes it your worst enemy; worse than the physical situation itself.
But Imagination is also necessary for Experience to win out over Panic. Somehow you must step outside your own skin, and imagine somebody else -- some pitiful fool who is not your real self -- displaying a pattern of thinking that is trying to make a bad situation worse. Recall the great Truth of Weaver's Ideas Have Consequences: "the apparent does not exhaust the real." It was only my "apparent" self who was stuck on that mountain. My "real" self was a quality, a noun, called Experience.
In our pampered era, we tend to use the term 'emergency' when in fact we are only in a "tricky situation." Most real disasters are actually a sequence of distinct mistakes. In all likelihood, you are still one or two mistakes away from a true disaster. Your all-important mission is to first arrest the downward spiral NOW.
Commenter, George, mentioned the similarity of accident emergencies and medical emergencies. Recall the great aphorism of medical ethics, primum nil nocere, 'first, do no harm.' Until a century ago, just about any medical problem was a scary emergency. It's easy to see why there was tremendous pressure on the physician to "do something."
Stepping outside myself, "I" saw a fool trying to "do something" at all cost, despite not having experience about backing down mountains. Yes, there were pro-s and con-s to backing down, but this other "Self" asserted itself, and said that this was not the time to experiment with a new technique. Happily I resisted the self-fulfilling prophecy of Panic.
This "negative" agenda must succeed first. Recall the old Latin poet's aphorism (Horace) that 'Fleeing vice is the beginning of virtue.' Yes, it's just the beginning. Now it was time to implement a "positive" agenda. That will have to wait for part III.
Comments
And yup, I'm writing this from my new 6-foot wide cargo trailer. It's WAY cool. It's feels more like a gypsy wagon than an RV. I stealth camped last night in the DMV parking lot in Deer Lodge, Montata (next to a big field and pretty). The cops in the diner across the street ignored me.
An interesting thing, your observation of a different "self" emerging. Lots of theories about that but probably not really important to define it but a terrific thing just to realize our capacity for these multiple aspects of personality or awareness, each representing their own viewpoint or perspective and that carry on conversations (sometimes arguments) within. Always interesting to see who wins.
Great post.
Those houses at the top of the mountain hint at how he was extracted from his predicament, but I'll wait for the rest of the story, no more assumptions from me.
Your description of a "tricky situation" is so true. Well said.
"Introspective" is maudlin, effeminate, and sickly-religious.
(It trails along just fine w/ no extra hardware, is balanced in height w/ my FJ, and I keep forgetting it's back there. I am feeling it a bit on mileage, though.
Jerry
I was just wondering , how long does it take for you to rattle off one of these blog posts ?
You know if you can knock one out in 20 minutes - maybe you should be writing books like Thomas Mann Buddenbrooks ? I think