Release

Has it ever occurred to you that people hanging from buildings ultimately let go? As a child, I remember being struck by an image. In the course of an evening newscast, a local television station showed footage of a high-rise building fire. Smoke gushed up and out of the windows on the 34th floor. As the helicopter circled from a safe distance, one could make out human figures tenuously draped beneath the plumes. They were motionless as though waiting for something. Then, in an unsynchronized fashion, the shapes dropped out of the frame. So it was that people died.

Could it be that this was how people met their demise? Dissociated from three dimensions, the images contained an eerie sense of irreality. The movement of the falling bodies was smooth and peaceful. It was strange how silently death happened. The figures fell without noise, like so many raindrops. The thumping drone of the helicopter and the crackled voice of the pilot assessing the scene continued unabated. Nothing was heard from the victims. Their departures were shown in a matter of fact way, like the following video clip of traffic pertaining to the next news item.

I was vexed by being witness to this scene. I brimmed with unanswered questions. How long until they struck the ground? What was on their minds as they were falling? Were their eyes opened or closed? Was anyone near when they landed? Did they land on their feet like cats would? How long did it take to be compressed into a tiny lump? Did it hurt, if only for a split second, or did the nerve impulse travel more slowly than death? Why were people at large being shown this image? Being young, I had no answers. Being alone, I had no one to ask.

I carried that confusion forward, suspecting something significant lied in that confounding footage. I replayed the scene many times in my mind. They arrived on the ledge by a choice of lesser of the two evils. Either resign yourself to die here at your own hands or…

What a quandary! You cannot stay inside—the fire is spreading. The stinging clouds are choking you and the smell of burning is dizzying. The stairs and the elevator are blocked. Your vision is impaired by the murky and stifling air. The face on your wall clock has become warped and discolored by the intense heat. In a panic you go to the window. A fleeting thought darts across your consciousness. You are between a rock and a hard place: the concrete below you and the hard truth burning behind you. So strong is your desire to survive you thrust yourself into a no less precarious position if only to gain a few more minutes of life. You smash the window with you desk chair, scrape off the remaining glass with your shoe, and look out. You feel dizzy again and go rigid with fear, but the breeze is relieving. Do you fling yourself out? No. You are not ready; you cannot stomach the sight. You turn to check the progress of the fire. You cough and gasp. Your front is warmed by the inferno. The fire is pushing you out. You cannot stand your ground. You cannot go back and before you is oblivion. Facing the flames, you lower yourself onto the sill, shimmy your legs out, then your torso, and then slide the rest of yourself down the façade of the building. You grasp the ledge and there you hang. Then comes the question so quintessentially human: now what?

Can you imagine being on a precipice, hanging on by eight fingers? In the frenzy of flight, you climbed out of your office to escape. There is no consolation waiting for you on the other side other than a cool breeze. You cling tight and feel a different kind of fire building in your forearms. The joints in your fingers creak as they gradually lose gripping ability. This is how the end comes: defeat by a protesting body. At some point, the pain becomes too great and mind gives the body up. Inevitably, you must let go. So it is in human life generally.

As I aged, I saw the scene as a symbol of our limitations and longings. We are trapped in finitude, walled off by solitude, prevented from safely departing by the malfunctions of language, beleaguered by the flames of passion and the smoke of confusion and imperfection. This is all so far from what we passionately want. Our idealism and hope drives us to the ledge.

We cannot bear to stay where we are. The world is not enough. Once we reflect upon our surroundings and dare to introspect, we discover intolerable discord. See the most common yearnings of the human heart: we want to live in a meritocracy, but that is untenable; we want to live without pain, but that is impossible; we want to live without conflict, but that is inevitable. It is enough to make your mind burn with disappointment and disdain!

You cannot alter your surroundings to the point where your ideals are met. Iniquities are systematic. Suffering is unavoidable. Strife is inescapable. If one were to undertake improving the world, one would end either in being frustrated or improving oneself instead.

Behind injustice, injury, and contention, looms the limitation that incorporates them all. Accelerated by the unique circumstance, those victims considered what must be faced: the necessity of death. We are left with the tragic choice of being consumed by our own environment or dying by our own hands. What an astounding fate for those creatures who have been given the gift of consciousness: to know what you currently have you will no longer have, including the you that knows it. When a child wakes up to the banality of death—its trivializing ease of attainment and its humiliating universality—it is enough to make him an insomniac.