A fighter pilot describes dropping a bomb from an F-18 as a flow state where time slowed and his mind sharpened. He's spent years chasing that same heightened consciousness through race-car driving and backcountry snowboarding, and argues that combat between trained professionals carries a sacred quality.
And, you know, taking it to the next level is, you know, look, strapping on an F-18 and banging off the front end of an aircraft carrier, I think is one of the coolest experiences a human can have. Right. And, and I certainly miss the opportunity to do that. And, you know, I think combat is also one of the most sacred experiences a human can be subjected to. And, you know, I would say that, like, I remember the first time I was in a combat situation and I had to drop a bomb and they started reading the Nine Line over the radio. And I actually felt the back of my brain light up and I kind of almost went into this God view. Time slowed down and I can just clearly remember punching in the coordinates into the system in slow motion. And I know now that that is called super consciousness or flow state, but it's basically a higher level of consciousness than where we normally operate. And again, looking back on that experience, and now I realize that I spent many years chasing that elevated state. So, whether it was driving race cars at 10 out of 10 or jumping off cliffs on snowboards in the backcountry or pushing myself in these various arenas. Now that I've kind of had time to reflect and look at why I was pushing myself so far, I think it was to try and find that elevated state again. And there's just something I think unique about the combat experience of, hey, I'm trying to do my job. And the guy on the ground is also equally as trained and he's just trying to go home to his family the same way that I'm trying to go home to mine. There is, there is something really almost sacred about that experience.
