The nopeness, it burns.
Don’t get me wrong. I ain’t no shrinking violet. I’ve been skydiving, for instance. And by skydiving, I mean I’ve jumped out of a perfectly good airplane. It wasn’t even on fire or anything. I just jumped right out, on purpose.
Hey, that’s a World War II vintage training plane, isn’t it? Neato. It’s coughing smoke like a 1989 Chevy Citation, but other than that, it looks like it’s in fine shape. The guy flying it looks like a jaunty fellow. Low-key, just like all the fellows that learned to fly in that thing back in the day. I bet Jimmy Stewart learned to fly in one of those planes, or something similar. He was a B-17 pilot, for reals. He didn’t go Hollywood when he enlisted. He went to war. …
I know bravery. It’s different than bravado. Bravado is bucking yourself up for a big game by telling people that aren’t your opponent that they’re lucky that they’re not your opponent.
Or maybe not bravery. Audacity, surely. There’s no hesitation. Just realization, and action. Or perhaps it’s being intrepid we’re seeing here. That situation looks daunting. The skydiver’s friends are dauntless.
It’s mettle and moxie. Nerve. Pluck. Fortitude. Grit. It’s keeping your head when all around you people are, if not losing theirs, at the very least, bonking theirs together.
It’s… it’s… it’s the reason for this blog, in one minute and forty-one seconds. It’s derring do. Do some, someday.
Now, where did I leave that thing?
There’s never enough “no” when you’re answering the question, “Will you jump out of a plane without a parachute?” Regular people jump out with two. So another guy jumps out of the plane with an extra one for you? I’d make sure I owed that guy with the spare parachute a lot of money, and cancel my life insurance. It’s the only way to be sure.