This summer, on our annual visit to Cedar Point (a rollercoaster park in Ohio), I rode something called The Gatekeeper (you can virtually ride it here) which turned out to be an ideal apparatus to get better acquainted with my growing fear of heights. 

I, honestly, don’t get my fear of heights. Back in junior high, I seriously considered making a career out of getting girls to scream at me by standing at the edge of cliffs or ledges.  I once solved a lost key problem and impressed my now wife by scaling a 3-story apartment building and going in the skylight.  And enthralling as this fear may be, it doesn’t always pre-register in the cognitive part of my brain, which means I could look at The Gatekeeper, and think, goofily, sure why not.  It wasn’t until I was locked in and making the 170 foot initial ascent, that both my body and brain registered an entirely different take on the situation.

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