an excerpt from the diary of Maria - Eleven Minutes

...I stood for a long time by the roller coaster, and I noticed that most people get on it in search of excitement, but once it starts, they are terrified and want the cars to stop.

What do they expect? Having chosen adventure, shouldn't they be prepared to go the whole day? Or do they think that the intelligent thing to do would be to avoid the ups and downs and spend all their time on a carousel, going round and round on the spot?

At the moment, I'm far too lonely to think about love, but i have to believe that it will happen, that I will find a job and that I am here because I choose this fate. The roller coaster is my life;life is a fast, dizzying game; life is a parachute jump; it's taking chances, falling over and getting up again; it's mountaineering; it's wanting to get to the very top of yourself and to feel angry and dissatisfied when you don't manage it.

...However, if I believe that the track is my destiny and that God is in charge of the machine, then the nightmare becomes something thrilling. It becomes exactly what it is, a roller coaster, a safe, reliable toy, which will eventually stop, but, while the journey lasts, I must look at the rounding landscape and whoop with excitement.

--Paulo Coelho

[get this widget]