This is the outside podcast with Paddyo.

Not once did you talk about the actual incredible fear that most humans would feel jumping out of an airplane in a squirrel suit.

Did fear ever enter your melon during the learning of this?

Of course.

I'd be lying if I said, no, I'm not a psychopath.

It's terrifying.

Even every year after you haven't jumped for a few months,

first jump of the season is nerve-wracking at times because you're not sure if you still remember how to do things. Okay, I can relate to that because I feel like every winner, right? I put my ski boots on. I'm like, yes, we're going skiing. And I go downhill. I'm like, do I remember? Do I remember how to do this? And then it takes like one turn or one like bump to throw you off access a little bit.

And you're like, do I remember? Do I remember how to do this? And then it takes like one turn or one like bump to throw you off access a little bit. And you're like, okay, I remember how to recover. My muscles are waking up. Is it kind of like that? That's right. The reason why it's a bit more difficult is that you can't just stop and reset. You can't snowplow. You can't Pizza, pizza, pizza. You're in it. There's no pizza in the air, man. What are you talking about?

I have this recurring dream where I'm standing at the top of the stairs in the house I grew up in, and then inexplicably, I'm falling head first toward the landing at the bottom. At first I float slowly and can even make out little details on the wall in my peripheral

vision, but then things get blurry as I speed up.

The landing is rushing toward me faster and faster, and then right when I'm close enough

to make out the grain and the wood, I shake awake, milliseconds before my face smashes into the floor.

For as long as I've been sleeping, I've had this dream. Now, before you ask to examine the lumps on my

head, let me assure you that this is all pretty normal. A fear of falling is an innate human

emotion, a survival mechanism that protects us from harm

and keeps us alive. I've spent my adult life in the mountains, climbing lots of sketchy ridge lines

and scrambling along some pretty big cliffs, but I have never stopped being afraid of falling.

I have friends who paraglide and who do that weird paragliding meets skiing thing

known as speed flying, and their insistence that I give either a try is met with an emphatic,

no friggin' way, dude. The fact that there are people who seem to suspend this innate fear

and fly through the air for fun is both fascinating and confounding to me.

...