It’s a beautiful sinking feeling. I remember seeing this movie about this lost ship that was in uncharted waters and this kid had just survived a brutal battle but lost his arm and he later grabbed a cannon ball and leapt off the edge and sank. I wonder how far he got down before he let go.
Before the cannon ball kept going and he started to float back up, suspended in a slow animation. That’s what this feeling is.
You get small tinges of rising, floating, being weightless and free and that’s what it does to you. You laugh at yourself, at your absurd behavior, because you did this, you asshole. Then the blame settles in. Why are you doing this to yourself? And you remember that you are drowning, drowning very slowly and will never be able to reach the surface again. If you tried, you’d suck in air and get water instead.
So why fight? Let yourself float. That listless feeling returns. Elation. You almost wonder if this was always like this and that now, you’re actually at your peak. You’ve never been this high before and you keep going higher. But if you remember, you started above-water. And you won’t make it back to that point again.
The sinking feeling returns. And you’re still drifting in the sublime. Surrounded on all sides by nothing but ocean in all directions, pure, deep blue. You can only see debris drifting in all directions, but nothing. You are a speck but you really realize it now. This is the sublime, a moment so beautiful that you could never describe it.
And this cycle continues, endlessly, until you suffocate. How far down again? How far down before you let go?