The cliche about my life "flashing before my eyes" came directly after I was gored, dragged ten feet upside down - head bouncing off of the centuries-old Pamplona cobblestone pathway all the while - and then flung beneath the alpha bull, only to be trailed by the other bulls. It's funny, in hindsight, that the alpha bull was the one that got me. I really thought I was out of the woods, too, when I was dropped on my head. However, I looked up to see the underbellies of the other bulls rapidly approaching, and so my only refuge - and truly the only refuge of any man just wanting to live, above all else, and being quickly reduced to a flesh hull with some beating instruments within him - was to curl up into the fetal position and quickly find a God to believe in.

Then I was mercifully trampled. I say mercifully because I was only half-stepped on. The bulls, mindful that a human was beneath them or else not wanting to be bothered with post-trampling blood and guts clean up, applied perhaps a quarter of the pressure they normally would (which is still a lot) when they stepped on me.

And then it was over. I clambered to my feet and I finished the running of the bulls, known to the locals as San Fermin 2014.

It's the third time I've been near death and the classical understanding, to me, is that you arrive at the other side of things and you're sheet white, all appraising, and nothing else at all besides thankful. Never did I feel more alive! I arrived to the matador arena and met back up with my girlfriend and one of my best friends, and I told them what happened to me. I looked the part, too: bloody, bruised, clothes ripped and disoriented.

It was an awakening, though. I felt like I've just been sleepwalking to this point. I have post-concussion syndrome, and because of it my personality has changed. It's my second concussion, with the first occurring in a vehicle accident in the fire department. The more concussions you have, the more likely you are to develop PCS. Well I'm more aggressive now, and I don't have much of a threshhold for bullshit.

My girlfriend seems to enjoy it, because she's beautiful and beautiful girls don't get told no very much. Now I tell her no when she deserves it and give no free passes because she's a gene pool lotto winner. All of the information from TRP, Rollo, CH and so on seemed to just synthesize all at once. That was the big get it for me. Life is incredibly precious and can quite literally be taken from you at any given time. Ever since then all of my efforts have been enhanced by this fire burning inside of me. My writing, the sex, my workplace demeanor (I am the lead paramedic at an emergency room and EMS system in Baghdad, Iraq) have all benefited. In truth I'm a completely different person, not unlike the Tyler Durden persona from Fight Club. It's as much serendipitous as it is a manifestation of all of my efforts up until now.

Finally, it's good to be a guy. I'm 30 now and I found another gear and I'm bearing down on the remainder of my existence. There's so much I've done and yet so much more I've sold myself short on. Life is nothing if not abundant, and I plan on taking as much as I can.

TRP, when did you just "get it"? At what point did you realized you'd crossed that red pill line of demarcation? I'd be interested in hearing your stories, as I'm sure they're very interesting.