The story all over the news in Canada right now is about a doctor from Quebec who was killed in an avalanche while trying to climb Mt. Mansalu, evidently the world's eighth largest mountain. While I have some sympathy whenever anyone does relatively young, stuff like this irks me. If you risk your life to do something dangerous and subsequently get killed doing it it's not a tragedy, IMO, but rather nature taking its course. That's just me being grumpy, though. Focus: Ever risked your life doing something? What's the most dangerous thing you've ever done? Alt Focus: What WOULD you risk your life to do, given the right circumstances?
Alt Focus: I would certainly risk my life to save my children. I am certain any parent would say that.
Focus: I went skydiving. That shit was awesome. Not sure if it is life risking, but its something I did. Alt Focus: I'd risk my life to save a loved one. Hopefully a very hot girl I'm dating so she would love me forever...and I'd get awesome media coverage for being a hero. I'd take the world by storm.
Friends in college tried to get me to go parachuting with them. Um, no. That's a wholly unnatural act. The only way I'm jumping out of a plane is if the pilot says, "I'm leaving." I'm not of the mindset of putting my life on the line for the sake of a thrill. But if circumstances warranted taking such a risk such as saving my wife or kids, no question. I like to think I'd do it no matter who the other person is, but I can't honestly say I would, and I hope I never get the chance to make that decision.
Focus: Don't know how many bottles of liquor I've opened and finished in the same night just because "they needed emptying." Alt. Focus: Simple math for me. If I could save two innocent lives for the cost of my one, it'd be "worth" it. Or at least that's how I think right now -- self preservation and all; when shit hits the fan I'm sure instinctual self-preservation and all that might disagree with my sober view on ethics.
Fixed that for you. (Reference: Gender differences in risk taking: A meta-analysis. Byrnes, James P.; Miller, David C.; Schafer, William D. Psychological Bulletin, Vol 125(3), May 1999, 367-383.) Focus: hmmm. Scuba diving in foreign countries with inadequate preparation on my part and inadequate safety precautions on their part probably takes the cake. Leaky tank, failure to monitor my gauges, mild panic, and a dive master who couldn't leave the rest of his charges to look after me meant that I a) ran out of air 20m down and b) swam straight to the surface at max speed without thinking about decompression. Dumb, dumb, dumb, and my sinuses haven't worked quite right since, but astonishingly lucky that I got away with it. Yeesh. Oh, and a previous housemate had an 1100cc motorbike that we used to ride in less than ideal conditions. He crashed it into a car at 60km/h while avoiding the police and landed on his head in an intersection. Put a fist sized hole in his helmet, but after a horrific 12 hours the swelling in his neck went down and we found out he wasn't paralyzed after all. He's always been an adrenaline junkie though - his job now is to blow very large holes in cliffs.
It's hard to do anything awesome if it isn't life-threatening on some level. But I've never done anything that I thought offered a reasonable chance of death. Pushed myself out of 8 different airplanes, climbed the odd mountain, played with grenades and explosives, sure... but nothing that pushed the denominator side of the pro/con into the 'good chance of death' catagory. Skydive from the stratosphere. Not even remotely qualified to do that, but I totally would.
Jeez go back to bed DCC. I don't think someone dying doing something they enjoy while knowing the risks is just Darwinism and on the same plane as someone getting hit by a Mack truck because they were crossing the road while texting.
I once had unprotected sex. Spoiler Alert: Spoiler Just like his Dad Focus: A surprise gift I recieved on my 18th birthday from the olds was to go skydiving. On the day. It was a tandem jump, and while the people normally operate out of a local airport, on my birthday they happened to be doing their jumps down at a beach-side town, so I got a beautiful view. I understand now why it's called a 'vanishing point.' I got it on video, replete with U2's Beautiful Day, and Van Halen's Jump but I can't post it here because it's on VHS. That's because it was... Holy Hell that was nearly seven years ago. In any case, one could say my parents were trying to tell me something by having me thrown out of a plane, but the truth is I had been fascinated with skydiving since I was a kid; I used to jump off our shed wearing a backpack with a plastic bag tied to it.
Focus: I used to break horses, many of which were quite dangerous for a novice. I've been tossed and dragged and kicked...always got back on. I've done my share of riding motorcycles (and crashing). I've done LOTS of drugs in my youth, can't believe I survived some nights. Alt Focus: Fuck yeah, on skydiving. It would have to be with a reputable company, proper gear, etc. To me it isn't much different than hopping on a plane for travel, just a better exit. I have kids, and yes, I would do ANYTHING to protect/save them.
I will hop on the sky diving wagon. That shit was a thrill, and I'd do it again and again. I've also snow boarded a lot of questionable terrain and forests, falling plenty. All I got from that is now my wrists crack and my ankles crack going up and down stairs. I wouldn't do anything without proper training and equipment though. A kid in high school wrapped a bike around a tree, eventually going the way of Terry Schiavo. It was sad, and I sympathized with his family, but it was by no means a tragedy. Its tragic if an orphanage gets struck by lightning and burns down. Its stupid going twice the speed limit on someone else's motorcycle with no helmet or experience/m class license. Or maybe I'm a soulless shit bag. Or both? I also don't sympathize with the 3 or 4 well off, upper middle class high schoolers that ODed on bad heroin (don't think there's actually good heroin). The fuck did you think would happen, you suburbanite retards? Again, condolences to the families...see? Not a total shit bag.
Since we're all hopping on the DCC bandwagon... This is classic recession thinking, and many of your posts over the last few months have been in the same vein. In hard economic times, people care primarily about taking care of their own and fuck everybody else. I mean you're.ot the only one to do this, but there it is. Focus, go mountain climbing in Europe. Those guys don't give a shit. Go have fun, and if you hurt yourself, you're on the hook for it. It should make Americans ashamed when they say they're the land of personal freedom and personal responsibility when in France there is excellent transportation infrastructure that will take you, with very little effort, into life-threatening circumstances.
Skydiving is the tits, and bungee jumping is actually fun if you jump off the super-tall bridges out in B.C. There's lots of crazy shit I'd like to try, like walking the trail up and down Angel's Landing in Zion Park. It's almost as tall as the CN Tower and I guess the path narrows to ten feet in some places: ...I would not try BASE jumping, though. There's a line between slight-risk fun and being a fucking moron, and jumping off gigantic granite walls with winds to slam you right back into them is a bad idea in my book. Unless that cliff is Mount Thor on Baffin Island. It's the tallest wall on earth: ....over 5,000 feet down. AWWWWWWWW YEAH
I've done plenty of things that risk bodily harm but never really death. I guess the riskiest thing is over the past summer when I didn't have a car I would rip through heavy traffic and intersections on a bicycle ignoring pretty much any kind of traffic law. Came close to getting absolutely destroyed a couple times. It was really fucking stupid but I'm young and dumb and it seemed like everything would be fine at the time.
I've had plenty of risky hobbies over the years. I rode dirt bikes and raced snocross in my early 20's and had a blast. I don't do that shit anymore because my body just doesn't take the abuse like it used to. Now I race snowmobiles on the ice and ride my sportbike on road race tracks. It's still dangerous, but it makes me feel alive, and it's a damn good workout. This is me: Spoiler My knee should be dragging on the asphalt in this picture, but the genius with the camera was about 1.5 seconds too slow. I crashed about 45 seconds after the picture was taken. Oops.
Go to NYC and take the D train to the south Bronx. For an added thrill, wear an Aryan Brotherhood tee shirt.
No, just pointing out that the US has an excellent transportation infrastructure that will take you, with very little effort, into life-threatening circumstances, too.
I'm not an adrenaline junkie, so skydiving and crap like that doesn't interest me. But I was always very curious. Breaking into abandoned houses or climbing into abandoned mines? Now that's more like it. I'd spend many summer days exploring adits from old iron mines as a kid, unaware of the risks: http://science.howstuffworks.com/engineering/structural/abandoned-mine.htm
I am a total adrenaline junkie. I went skydiving on my last birthday. It was tandem but I would love to do it again solo. Base jumping also interests me. I have a motorcycle as my only vehicle. I'm making plans to go white water rafting. Even as a kid I would climb absolutely everything. My parents would find me in the tops of trees or on the roof of our house. If I had the money and time, I would absolutely climb Everest. The only thing I have no interest in is bungee jumping. I would if someone really wanted to go but I would never make plans myself, not because I'm scared though. I wanted to focus my insanity into something productive so I considered joining the Army or Air Force but I backed out because I lose interest in things very fast and did not want to commit that much time. A few months ago my friend was saying how he was bored and "had to do something crazy" like "ride that new roller coaster." I was dumfounded how someone could consider something so trivial to me to be crazy. Is your life that boring? I guess it's all relative.