Do Peak Experiences Require Emergencies?

  When I read the works of Colin Wilson and Abraham Maslow, I am struck by how peak experiences always seem to be accompanied by a sense of relief, particularly in Wilson's examples. Graham Greene's experience of playing a game of "Russian roulette" with a gun prefigures in many of Wilson's writings, being an example of where a sense of exhilaration often follows from the threat of life and death. But this makes me wonder: do we need the threat of danger to encounter peak experience? I almost feel that, in fact, the danger gets overrated, and we are inclined to think that we can manage more "danger" than in fact we can. We can also explain it as being a gratitude that is not based on a real acceptance of the dangerous situation, but a fictitious remaking of the experience. I look back on the experience and think that the grace of God saves me from the dangerous experience--when in fact, the midst of the dangerous experience was quite traumatizing at the time when I experienced it. In a sense, the fictitious remaking only happens after the fact of the experience, so in a sense, we can't say that danger itself is the direct cause of the gratitude itself.

   The problem I see is that, in the midst of uncertainty, there is no way one can know whether she or he will survive the experience. When we do manage to overcome difficulties, we tell ourselves that next time we will know how to avoid them or stop them. Does that mean that the smoker suddenly quits smoking after a heart attack? Well, it should be the case, but is it always the case? Sometimes yes, and sometimes no; it depends on the conditions of one's mind, as well as whether or not the experience had inspired the person to change. We are always narrating an experience in a way that makes for thrilling entertainment, but when we are in the struggle, we don't truly know whether we will be spared in the end.

  It seems that the best solution is not to look for peak experiences at all, but to practice equanimity in the midst of difficulties. Otherwise, one will get ensnarled in expectations and even a sense of control that is not even present in the situations we face. If we knew in advance that we would definitely survive a harrowing experience, then the experience itself would lack a feeling of struggle. In fact, this might lead us to stop struggling altogether! So an element of uncertainty (and surprise) seems necessary in motivating us to creatively extend ourselves in the face of difficulties.