Some of life’s negative experiences can often make for positive changes by making us stronger, wiser, braver and a better man.
“Man learns through experience, and the spiritual path is full of different kinds of experiences. He will encounter many difficulties and obstacles. The experiences he needs to encourage and complete the cleansing process.” -Sai Baba of Shirdi
Survive in The Wilderness
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Camping in the outdoors with specifically prepared supplies and advanced planning is not surviving, that’s having an adventure holiday. I mean living off the natural world around you using just your wits and instincts because you must, in order to live until escape or rescue.
Hunt for your own food, make your own shelter, seek out water and defend yourself against the untamed – like almost all other life on earth does, and how we used to eons ago. Doing this even for just a few days can forever change you as a more evolved person by utilizing our since devolved traits.
Get Into a Fist Fight
I don’t condone random or needless acts of violence but it’s been a part of human nature since our dawn. And as barbaric and ironically inhuman as it may sound, hand-to-hand combat with another human is one of the purest and rawest experiences of being human.
The satisfying feel of your knuckles making contact with the target is just as important as the shock of the pain of being that hit target. Losing a fight while obviously unfavorable, is also as important as winning when it comes to learning more about yourself.
Never go looking for a fight, but embrace it if there is no other choice.
Have Your Heart Broken
You haven’t truly lived until you’ve loved and been loved back, but one can’t truly understand or appreciate love without heartbreak.
Love may be one of the most difficult things to accurately describe, yet it’s the most apparently felt and most powerfully moving.
However, that also means it’s equally (if not more) invasive with heartbreak.
Insert cliche (here)… What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.
Experience Near-Death
The entirety of our existence is the experience of life, so non-death as death is the end and no memory of it is technically retainable or retrievable. But we can experience near-death events and then the rare subsequent sensations and thoughts from it. Often enlightening and life changing.
The feel of a soaring bullet grazing your neck hairs, the groundless feeling below your feet on a misstep over a ledge or slowly losing consciousness from a seemingly mortal wound. Mind altering, mood heightening and scary as hell – not much different from getting high but with the benefit of a moment of pure clarity and vision.
Plus, under the right circumstances, it’s the ultimate aphrodisiac.
Trip on a Psychedelic
More of an illegal activity than a bad experience although perfectly legal and accepted in many parts of the world. This isn’t about recreational drug use or high-functioning substance abuse, I’m talking about a singular journey of the mind. To temporarily reach a higher level of imagination and openness. To break our brain’s 10 percent usability ceiling and access just 1 more percentage and see what’s in there.
Go to a tropical paradise island in Indonesia and consume all natural and all legal magic mushrooms in the comfort of well, paradise. The thing of it is, it may unlock too much of what’s in your noggin and could become a “bad trip”.
But even then, once it’s all done, you may very well be sharper and wiser for it.
Be Chased by Police on Foot
Hopefully this happens when you’re younger and it’s over something juvenile but I’ve had the honor and pleasure of being pursued as an active suspect (as per department consultations) from police forces all around the world.
There’s good reason why dangerous and adrenaline pumping activities like sky diving, running with the bulls or in this case, being chased by cops is so damn exciting. Exactly because it is dangerous and adrenaline pumping, it makes us feel more alive, even as a mere spectator.
No other thrill is quite like it. Also, hashtag cardio.
[The featured photo was taken on Oryukdo Island.]
3 Comments
Great man list… I’d like to know more about getting paid to be chased by police, I assume it’s the police that’s also paying you? Umm where do I send my resume???
Probably something to do with his former CIA job. Now how to catch slippery crooks and such.
So I’m planning my Indonesia vacation now 🙂