I recall first roller coaster ride, at about age seven. Glen Echo Amusement Park on the Potomac River near the DC line.
Waiting in line, cold with fear, slightly sick to my stomach. Mentally weighing the cost to my rep with the boys if I chickened out. Getting in the coaster car and feeling a welcome wave of numbness - almost a paralysis.
The ride was an experience in cognitive dissonance. I was locked into the idea that it was going to be terrifying, and yet, as it happened, it was actually thrilling, a rush, fun.
That is around the time that I began to realize that my attitude and mood could dramatically affect how I felt about something. Come to think of it, the Catholic Church at the time described age seven or thereabouts as the "age of reason"; the age at which we have enough ability to reason and make moral judgements to begin to be responsible for our choices.
BTW just ordered a copy of "Never Enough Words", etymology and slang are pet interests for me, thanks for the review on that!
Great! I hope you enjoy the book as well. And I must admit I didn't really enjoy roller coasters until I was in my teens, and have never warmed to the loops. Give me an old-fashioned rattletrap wooden coaster that's about to fall apart, I say.
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I recall first roller coaster ride, at about age seven. Glen Echo Amusement Park on the Potomac River near the DC line.
Waiting in line, cold with fear, slightly sick to my stomach. Mentally weighing the cost to my rep with the boys if I chickened out. Getting in the coaster car and feeling a welcome wave of numbness - almost a paralysis.
The ride was an experience in cognitive dissonance. I was locked into the idea that it was going to be terrifying, and yet, as it happened, it was actually thrilling, a rush, fun.
That is around the time that I began to realize that my attitude and mood could dramatically affect how I felt about something. Come to think of it, the Catholic Church at the time described age seven or thereabouts as the "age of reason"; the age at which we have enough ability to reason and make moral judgements to begin to be responsible for our choices.
BTW just ordered a copy of "Never Enough Words", etymology and slang are pet interests for me, thanks for the review on that!
Great! I hope you enjoy the book as well. And I must admit I didn't really enjoy roller coasters until I was in my teens, and have never warmed to the loops. Give me an old-fashioned rattletrap wooden coaster that's about to fall apart, I say.
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