The Parable of the Tourists on the Canyon Bridge

One day while teaching, Josh was asked, ”Teacher, can a vivid interior life make up for a banal exterior existence, and can a vivid exterior existence balance out a banal interior life?”

Josh spoke thus:

Two tourists were looking down from the middle of a bridge that spanned a deep canyon.

“I’ll jump if you jump,” the first tourist said.

“I’ll jump if you’ll jump first,” the second tourist said.

The first tourist stood on the railing of the bridge, looking into the fast-flowing water and the rocks below.

“I think it’s easier to jump from a plane,” the first tourist said, “There’s an abstraction to jumping out of a plane, I think.  You sit in a plane and you look down, and the ground is not rock and dirt, the fields are not grass and corn, the forests are not branches and twigs and leaves.  The world is like a giant platonic ideal, not a hard surface that’s going to come up and smack you in the face with terminal velocity.”

“Terminal being the key word in that sentence,” the second tourist said, “You’re stalling.”

“I’m not stalling,” the first tourist said, “I’m just saying that by the time you jump out of the plane and feel gravity pulling at you, feel the wind rushing in your face, feel--actually feel--the world rushing up at you, it’s too late to change your mind and get back in the plane.  You’re free falling, and there’s no unfalling once you start.  There’s a sort of freedom to that.”

“A lack of choice is inevitability, not freedom,” the second tourist said, “Now stop stalling.”

“I’m not stalling,” the first tourist said, “I’m just saying that there is so much more immediacy to this jump.  That is not an abstract river down there, those are not abstract rocks.  That is water you can hear, spray you can taste, dirt you can smell.  My heart is racing, I can tell you.  There’s a real sense of danger.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, danger,” the second tourist said.

“There’s a palpable sense of imminent death,” the first tourist said.

“There’s a definite possibility of imminent death,” the second tourist said, “From old age, waiting for you to jump!”

“I just want to enjoy the thrill,” the first tourist said.
“I just want to jump and go and get a beer,” the second tourist said.

“You don’t get a thrill?” the first tourist asked.

“I get a thrill from jumping, not from talking about jumping,” the second tourist said.

“That’s your problem,” the first tourist said, “You don’t appreciate the thrill.”

“You want me to appreciate the thrill?” the second tourist said, “Okay, I’ll appreciate the thrill.”

The second tourist removed his bungee harness and joined the first tourist up on the rail.

“What are you doing?” the first tourist asked.

“I’m appreciating the thrill,” the second tourist said, “We jumped out of a plane, we had a parachute.  We paraglided, we had a tether and a parachute.  We went on an African lion safari and we had a guide, an air-conditioned van we never got out of and a bored pride of lions on the other side of a clearing, sunning themselves after a meal.  Well now I’ve got no parachute, I’ve got no tether, and I’ve got no guide and no van.  I’ve got no bungee.  I’ve got me, a rail, a river and some rocks.”

“You can’t jump without the bungee!” the first tourist said.

The second tourist counted, “One.  Two.  Three!”

The second tourist pushed the first tourist off the rail.  The first tourist fell screaming into the canyon, then bounced slowly up and down, screaming the whole time.

“The idiot’s an adrenaline junky,” the second tourist said to the tour guide who came running, “Or it’s guilt for never joining up and fighting in Iraq.  Or it’s both.  I don’t care.  I just like to push.”