[andrew]

So I went to this party with a bunch of great people that are around my age that I met at Toastmasters. One of the guys was doing fire eating, and teaching everyone how to do it.

The act itself is quite simple and there's really nothing to it. It's the overcoming the fear part that it's all about. Placing a rod of fire in your mouth and closing it, isn't really something most people are willing to do without hesitation.

So, of course, I did it. Was I scared? Eh, maybe, but not so much as I was nervous. But it still was something big to overcome: standing there, watching yourself take a foreign, metal rod, with a red-orange flame, flickering wildly at the end of it, and then even more intently watching as you quickly shove all of that into your mouth, then clamping your lips around the (increasingly hot rod), and hoping (praying) the fire goes out like it's supposed to.

Needless to say, once it was over (and I finished shaking), I was like "is that it?".

Reminds me of a Zen saying: "Learning Zen is a phenomenon of gold and dung. Before you understand it, it's like gold; after you understand it, it's like dung."