I want to describe a state of mind that I experienced when hot air ballooning. Earlier this summer, in the city of Graz, I had the opportunity to accompany the Kindermann family on an early-morning ride. I observed their careful preparations. The Kindermanns and their associates laid out two balloons on a field, and then deployed what might be called the mothers of all blow-driers/fans. The balloons gradually rose from their flatitude. One of the men and I held the openings so that the moving air would not miss it. I felt important doing this. Then the Kindermanns rolled in the big guns. They angled a pair of flame-throwers at the balloon’s opening and let them rip. The flames seemed angry and hot enough to melt molecules. I was so stunned by the display that I failed to ask if I could get behind the blasters. Now there’s an example of regret from a guy who does not believe in regret.
Once the balloons were inflated, we (3) clambered into the basket, which we shared with gas tanks and navigational equipment. Not enough room to swing a cat. Psychologically, I did not experience any emotional state. Neither fear, nor apprehension, or euphoria. I barely noticed the moment of lift-off, that’s how smooth it was. Once in the air, the emotionless state continued. Only my perceiving faculties seemed to be operating. All through the ride, which lasted about an hour, I was perceiving, perceiving, perceiving. Most of it was visual, including a vertical view of the psychology building at the university and a bit later the house in which I was staying. And then, of course, there were the vistas of the city of Graz, its promontorial namesake crag, and the Slovenian Alps in the distance. All this was entering my mind, which absorbed it and contemplated it. It seemed to me, though, that the contemplation was not what we ordinarily consider “thinking.” I would rather describe it as the operation of a meditative state. Once I came to my senses (or rather, to my “thinkings”) when back on the ground, I tried to express to my friends what I had experienced. I had felt one with my perceptions. There was no analysis or evaluation, just taking in the record. I wonder if practitioners of meditation enter similar states when contemplating a lotus blossom. And then I wonder, do they have to work on that for years? Go, take a ride in a balloon, and the meditative experience is handed to you! And boy, what you see is way cooler than stalk and petals.
Back on the ground, the stalker (follower) was waiting for us with his truck. He helped deflating and rolling up the balloon (still dazed, I did not, which is my second regret). Then the Kindermann family gently guided the two newbies through the baptismal ritual. We knelt, had a hair singed with a cigarette lighter and extinguished with champagne. Then we received a diploma with our balloonist name and a review of our duties and privileges. When ritual is well done, as this one was, it also has a meditative quality, and it provides a bridge back into so-called Normalität. I recall the day with contentment and gratitude.
================
Arthur Koestler created the felicitous term bisociation in his epochal work on The act of creation. I find it particularly delicious that the term is itself an example of the meaning it is intended to convey.