I Had a Great Fall

I got on my bike, my mind prepared for the task at hand, my fingers clenched around the handlebars, my teeth clenched, my body totally ready. I was ready to peddle my bike; I had to make it over the ramp; I had to get to the other side. My task, getting over the ramp, seemed simple enough. I had to get up the ramp, over the top, down the side, and back to the ground, safely in one piece. I began the to pedal my bike over to the ramp. Simple enough...right? As I climbed further up the ramp and as I began to reach the top I began to become scared as I began to fall. My fall was terrible in appearance, yet the pain was little. On my hand, blood I saw spreading. Why did I feel no pain? I began to walk inside, and walked, and tripped, and found, and spoke to, my mom. Her view of my wound and her awe at the grotesqueness and my lack of panic, moved her to slowly but surely clean and bandage my wound, patting me on the back for my bravery.

Why Do We Find Joy in Pain?

We have all seen America's Funniest Videos or watched funny videos of people doing stupid things, and ending up hurting themselves, sometimes very seriously. The very sentence I just wrote conveys my point exactly. We find these videos funny. Why?

In this video, "Scarlet Takes a Tumble," we see a woman, who decides to climb up onto a structurally unsound table, and proceed to dance and move her body in motions that do not equally distribute her weight along all support structures of the table. Scarlet proceeds to dance, proceeds to sing, proceeds to fall, as the table flies out from under her when she unfortunately walks too far forward, thereby unevenly distributing her weight to the front part of the table, causing said tumble.

Just while typing this description of this video, I am struggling to contain my laughter. But why? Why do we laugh at the pain of others? Why does the pain of others seem to amuse us to no end? When we see others, such as Scarlet, in unfortunate situations of unexpected pain and trauma, a number of things go through our minds. First off, humans have the innate, and not always becoming trait of finding cruel humor amusing. Secondly, and primarily, we have the urge to laugh at others pain because when we see someone else in an unfortunate situation, we have the "funny feeling" of relief that we are not in that situation. We are looking at Scarlet take her "tumble" and we say to ourselves "Wow... Glad that wasn't me." We then proceed to laugh because we know that she is alright, or the video wouldn't be online, and also because we have something that we are able to look at and be grateful we aren't in that persons shoes.

Three Books I would like to Read

I would like to read 19 Minutes, because Natasha and others have recommended this book to me and I heard it was really well written. I would also like to read The Red Tent, recommended to me by Ms. Weygandt, about Joseph's sister who was little mentioned in the Bible. Lastly, I want to read Among the Hidden, also recommended to me by Ms. Weygandt. I trust her recommendations because she has recommended me some very good books to read in the past.