The line is also part of the ride

I could hear screams coming from the roller coaster. Nobody died, but something did.

Coney Island, New York, 2017. A photo kept until it found its place.

There's something enigmatic and masochistic that happens at amusement parks that doesn't happen almost anywhere else: you pretty much know what you're in for, your body vibrates internally in a mix of anxiety and tension. You know something unnatural is about to happen, you know it takes a certain kind of courage, and you also know that right now your brain is not picking up the phone. You saw the ride, you heard those screams, you felt the air when they flew over you. And still, you stayed in line.

That kind of unconsciousness is something else.

The line at those places is the moment where fear and excitement coexist without going at each other's throats. They size each other up, side-eye each other, but neither one has won yet. There you go, moving forward little by little, choosing minute by minute to stay in that line. With every step forward, you know there's less time left to do something nobody's making you do. The ride is right there, and you choose to get closer.

In that wait there's something that doesn't usually land with people: the line is also part of the ride. It's where you prepare without quite knowing what for. It's where your body starts doing something with that fear before anything even happens. You could bail, and yet you stay. Fear didn't make you walk toward a different ride, it nudges you one small step further.

It's not just any fear, though. When there's fear, there also has to be a real benefit, something that brings you closer to what you value. Suffering for the sake of suffering makes no sense*. The roller coaster is worth it when you know why you want to get on.

And like the roller coaster, the curve that enthusiasm generates goes up. Going and trying, one ride after another, knowing the risks, being patient when you have to wait, moving forward with a mix of anticipation and caution: you have no intention of stepping off. Otherwise, why did you even come.

Then you get off, and that's the part nobody really tells you about: you step off with unreal momentum, feeling like the guy from the movie screaming in Sparta, wanting to get back in line and do it again or find something just like it, riding high on courage and adrenaline, with an incredibly powerful existential buzz. Something was left behind in the wait, a version of you that hadn't made it through the contradiction yet. You look at it over your shoulder. You killed it. It stayed behind.

Fear didn't empty you. It charged you up.

That's what good fear does. It doesn't disappear on the other side. It's waiting for you in the next line.

*Concept from the chapter: Fear and Anxiety. Las Olas, El Gato y la Caja.