Episode 1: Death from Above

Welcome to Actually Crazy: Useful Tidbits from a Lunatic. 

My name is Brandon Strellis, and I will be your lunatic, your hero, and, occasionally, your villain. This newsletter will begin by examining the various circumstances in which I've been face to face with Death. These incidents will form the spine of Volume 1 of this newsletter. 

Along the way, we will also begin to delve into the processes of consciousness which drove me towards these recurrent brushes with death. The arc of my madness forms the backdrop against which these near-misses played out. 

A quick note: If you've never had a lunatic of your own before, you might succumb to prevailing prejudices and assume that they have no purpose or utility – or that they can't be a hero. Oh, but how wrong you are, my friend! A lunatic can be used to solve a host of intractable problems. For example: 

• Are you only seeing people who are there? Bring in a lunatic, and they'll see some who aren't!
• Struggling to craft your own tin-foil hat? Trust the practiced hands of a lunatic for that!
• Trying to entertain children? Ask a lunatic to share his stories!

I could go on – the usefulness of lunacy is comprehensive, truly – but let's not. There's something I want to talk about: 

This past week, a storm blew through which nearly ended my time here. As I watched from my window, the storm grew stronger and stronger.  I could tell that if the wind picked up any more, trees would start to fall.  For a few seconds, the wind screamed to a new extreme. 

Before I could move an inch, two massive trees were torn up by the roots and flung down on either side of my house. They didn't fall – they were thrown down. In a chain reaction, the first monster tree struck and toppled a second, which struck and toppled a third. Four potential life-enders slammed to earth around me… and yet all four fell harmlessly.

My life was spared by a cumulative ten feet. My house was spared by one foot. My vehicle was spared by inches. 

This is the twenty-sixth near-death experience I have had, and when you exceed two dozen on that particular meter, you tend to start thinking, "Man, if I've dodged this many bullets, I must be the favorite human of a demi-god, if not an outright deity!"

I'm not, and there is no cosmic law which prevented that tree from falling on my head. For the twenty-sixth time, it didn't happen when it could have. I have a vague feeling that life is trying to urge an insight upon me...

The question I found myself asking in the days after these trees fell was this: Does the path that I am on lead to happiness BEFORE the next tree falls on me? I don't know how many more of these near-misses will be misses. Maybe that's my last one. I might only have days, weeks, or months left. 

I realized that if those trees had fallen on me instead of next to me, I would have died disappointed that I never started turning my insanity into something useful – for other lunatics, at least, if not for all the normals out there. 

So here we are. Trees fell, eyes opened, and fingers began tapping at the keyboard. I'm actually crazy. Let's see if we can make something useful out of it.

*** Takeaways ***

1. I should probably be dead. 

Twenty-six near-misses?? What was I doing, weaving through Atlanta highway traffic on roller blades at night? Feeding wild bears raw meat by hand for ten straight summers? 

2. It's never too late to start. 

At least, that's what I'm hoping. But in all seriousness – what feels good is being on the way towards your dreams. It's never too late to reinvent yourself, or just to make incremental improvements. Old is good! Late is good! Senior is sexy! Okay, I'll stop.

3. Lunatics are useful.

Crazy people have something to teach us. Their experience contains vital clues about how we all experience reality. 

*** Try This *** 

Death is a possibility anywhere that trees might fall or hearts might stop.

Does the idea of death frighten or entice you? Does it seem like a ghoul or a gift? 

If someone was enticed by the idea of death, and thought it sounded like a gift, would you consider that person mad?

*** Next Post ***

Having started at the end, we shall return to the beginning: my first near-death experience at age 12, and the subsequent emergence of the Energy Virus. Catastrophe awaits just around the bend in the San Jose hills…

As always, please comment and let me know about your own takeaways and your experiences with Try This!

Stay sane,

Brandon