So I’m sitting here at 2am, probably shouldn't be on my second scotch but who’s counting, right? I’ve been thinking about this one moment for forty years. Forty years. Am I the only one who had a brain that just... betrayed them the second things got serious? I see these people nowadays talking about "pure parental bliss" and I just want to laugh because my experience was a lot more, I don't know, visceral than that. Darker. And I’m fine with that, honestly. If people think that makes me a monster, well, they haven't lived enough life. It was 1982. I’d just landed a senior associate role at the firm—real shark tank stuff back then, you know? Everyone looking for a crack in your armor, waiting for you to miss a deadline or botch a closing. We were in this high-rise apartment in the city, lots of glass and chrome, very "upwardly mobile." My daughter was maybe six months old. My wife was finally asleep after a brutal week, and I took the kid out to the balcony because she wouldn't stop fussing. It was one of those nights where the air is so cold it feels like it’s scraping the inside of your lungs. I was standing there, looking out over the grid of the city, feeling like I’d finally "made it." I had the title, the suit, the view. She was this tiny, swaddled thing in my arms. So heavy but so light at the same time, you know? And I walked right up to the railing—black iron bars, maybe four inches apart—and I looked down at the streetlights twenty stories below. They looked like little orange sparks in a dark pit. And then, out of nowhere, my brain just... it just showed me the whole thing. Clear as a movie. I didn't want to do it, obviously, but the thought was so LOUD. It was like, "What if you just let go? What if your fingers just... stopped working right now?" I could see her falling, that white wool blanket fluttering like a damn bird, and the sound she’d make when—well, you can imagine. It wasn't a "fear" exactly. It was more like a glitch in the software. Like my mind was testing the absolute worst-case scenario just to see if I could handle the horror of it. Does that make sense? I remember my hands actually started shaking. Not because I was going to do it, but because I realized how easy it would be. One slip. One distracted second. All that work, all that "legacy" I was building at the office, all those late nights grinding for the partners—it could all be erased by gravity in three seconds. I felt this sick sort of power, I guess. I mean I don't even — whatever. It's hard to explain without sounding like a total sociopath, but I know I'm not the only one who's felt that "call of the void." I stood there for a long time. Just staring at the gaps in the railing. I could hear the city hum below us, the taxis honking. I thought about the performance review I had the next morning and how utterly STUPID it seemed compared to the fact that I was holding a life over a ledge. But I didn't move away. I stayed there, daring myself to keep looking. It was like I needed to feel the terror to know I was actually there, actually alive. Anyone else ever get that? That urge to just lean into the edge until your stomach turns? I never told my wife. Obviously. She would’ve called the cops or a priest or something. In those days, you didn't talk about "intrusive thoughts" or whatever the kids call it now. You just took another sip of your drink and went to work and tried to be the guy everyone expected you to be. But every time I saw a high place after that—a bridge, a roof deck, even a steep escalator—I’d see that white blanket falling again. It became this private ghost I carried around while I was climbing the corporate ladder. And look, I’m a good father. My daughter is forty now, she’s got her own kids, we have Sunday dinner and I’m the doting grandfather. I didn’t drop her. I didn’t even come close. But I’m retired now and I have too much time to sit in this chair and think, and that image is still as sharp as a razor. It’s like this secret stain on my "perfect" history. I look at her sometimes and think, "You have no idea how close the void felt that night." It’s a heavy thing to carry for four decades. I’m not looking for a pat on the back or someone to tell me I’m a "good person deep down." I know who I am. I’m just curious if everyone else is just walking around pretending they don’t have these hideous flashes of... I don't know, total darkness? Is it just part of the human machine? Or am I the only one who stood on a balcony and saw his whole world ending just because his brain decided to be a prick for five minutes? Seriously, tell me I'm not the only one.