There is a thing about exciting things.
The first ride on the rollercoaster is always such fun. It's because you've never done it before, because you're here to try something whose experience and outcome you cannot be sure of, except that you know others liked it. Throughout the ride, as each turn comes unexpected and each bump draws another exhilarated squeal, as your palms grow sweaty, almost slipping, your pupils dilate, and your heartbeat booms like a drum in your ears--there is the fear, the thrill, the novelty. All because you don't know if you'll survive. Then at the end, there is this hope for a second time.
The second time may come in a few weeks, even in many months, a year. That's why it's fun every time. At the eve of each ride, you retain a little inkling--a racing of the heart, a distant burst of adrenaline, the scream far down in your throat as the bends come hurtling towards you--and you take it on again, almost not remembering how it happened last time.
But say you took the rollercoaster every week. Now, the body knows how to adapt, because adaptation is a crucial part of survival. And you start to learn to handle not knowing what comes next--your pulse learns not to rush, the adrenaline learns not to come so fast--because you know the danger will not come. You know you are safe; your body learns that, and learns to cope.
And if you did the same everyday, you start to predict all the turns. Lose all joy for not knowing what comes next. Lose that happiness. The forgetting of the thrill is like a cliff fall--sudden. And it might not come back.
I'm afraid I'm wearing out the novelty of this. Some things make me thrilled beyond compare; this is one of them. I know that the thrill will eventually die, much faster because it happens so often--but I don't want the second scenario to be the one I live through. I don't want to take an overdose now, and fall out, so hard that I lose all ability to be happy when you try it again. I don't want this, ever, to be an empty grey shell of what it formerly was.
I hope you don't mind that I am retreating for a while. I don't want to squander all this joy on the first six months, and lose it for the rest of our time.
