The Psychology and Inspiration of Roller Coasters as Microcosms for Our Lives
Sunday, July 6th, 2008
Like Woody Guthrie says: “Take it easy or take it hard but TAKE IT!”
This post is inspired by and dedicated to my cousin. A rider of coasters of parks and imagination.
I enjoy roller coasters. Tonight I’m writing about them. At the pizza place tonight, my 3 year old daughter, Isabella, wanted to ride a small contraption for 4 tokens that called itself a roller coaster. It was a moving seat in front of a video tape of a real coaster. As I looked over it to make my decision as a dad whether it was an appropriate ride for her age and size, I found myself recalling some of the clinkety clankety roller coasters I’ve loved throughout the years. I let her ride it and I think I loved it more than she did and I wasn’t even in the rumbly seat. Rides create happiness. Because I write here about inspiration, psychology, and offbeat blogging, I thought this quite appropriate.
Roller coasters have woven in and out of my childhood, career, parenthood, and of course I’m sure those with better halves will agree: my marriage. They give you adrenaline, fear, exhilaration, and even exhaustion. We wait in lines for hours sometimes to get our chance to ride and when we’re done were told abruptly to get off. There is a psychology to wanting to ride and a psychology to wanting to stay off. Either way, the roller coaster is there … whether we rant loud or soft, we all get on and we all get off.
When we get inspired to do things, it’s like we’re on a ride. It’s so wonderful and our bodies feel light and invigorated, we laugh until we’re hoarse. But if we’re not careful, the highs of roller coaster inspiration can cause a fall. At the end of the fall, we may find depression or worse than that: no more inspiration. Though our lives are roller coasters, we need to remember this adage: It’s not how fast the roller coaster goes but how straight you walk out the exit. Drugs, for example, can cause you to stumble … and fall. Also, they can destroy brain cells and you can buy more like you would buy computer memory
I would never tell another human to not go on a ride, but I would tell them to stay cool when their riding high because the ground comes inevitably and the high can make you or break you when you’re talking about life’s coaster. People are great, in all their walks. This is no dress rehearsal, we are all on this coaster together.
We’d do well to use the loop-de-loops of life to store up energy. We will need it before we know it.
