A YouTube video was posted on June 9, 2009, in which an 8th grader named Aaron Shutway, standing at one end of a basketball court, performs a front handspring while holding the ball, and in landing the flip shoots across the court, and makes the shot. Dozens of his classmates who are present for the event erupt into applause and jumping. It seems less than hyperbolic to suggest that this was probably the greatest moment in Aaron Shutway's young life, and that it will be a long time before, if ever, another success is momentous enough to take its place. Perhaps, in some years, the love of a beautiful woman, or the landing of a coveted job, or having children of his own. And yet one imagines that even these joyous events will be measured against the benchmark of this crowning achievement.
To top it all off, in the less than two weeks that the video has been online it has been viewed more than one million times. Aaron Shutway is an internet celebrity!
The fact of the matter is that we know, rationally, how insignificant doing a front handspring with a basketball and making the shot while you are in 8th-grade gym class is in the grand scheme of world events and human accomplishment. Or at least that's what we tell ourselves as the looming threat of old age and cultural obsolescence gapes its ever-widening maw. But setting aside our jaded, disillusioned "perspective" for a moment, many of us would probably give almost anything to experience the overwhelming rush of Aaron Shutway's joy. His instant ascension to the status of "legend" in his classmates minds. A crystal moment of happiness. Forever.
Let's all give Aaron Shutway just a few more views on his video. His moment. Keep it going. Never stop.
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If you only had one shot, one opportunity, to seize everything an 8th-grader ever wanted, one moment, would you capture it or just let it slip? HIPPITY-HOO-BLAH!
