Why do you do it?
A glance at extremely high risk activities.
I was one of the nuts. I climbed cliffs like El Capitan with no rope. First, you have to understand that a very different kind of person WANTS to climb huge cliffs without any safety equipment, or jump off a cliff holding a parachute in their hands.
One of my friends used to climb super tall, super hard routes with no rope. Instead, he carried a parachute. Think about it! When he began to fail on the climb, he would push off and try to deploy that chute. I am speaking about Deen Potter in the past tense because he eventually jumped from the top of a cliff that was not steep enough, and he hit the cliff. So did the guy that was flying with him.
There were not that many 'high adventure' rock climbers when I partook, so i interacted with almost every one.
I helped Todd Skinner to install his climbing wall just before he went to valley for the last time. I had dinner with he, his wife, and his 3 kids.
I belayed Dan Osmond for some of his gigantic falls during the filming of Masters Of Stone.
I climbed with Derek Hersey often, and did a new route in the Cloud Peak Wilderness with his significant other after he got stormed off of the Steck Salathe. I also free soloed that route. It was my most difficult onsight free solo. On sight means that it was my first time on the route, and had someone's hand drawn map instead of memories.
I climbed both pitches of supercrack with Hayden Kenedy and his dad shortly before he had his trouble on a mountain route. I had been climbing with his parents since before he was born, and then, BAM! he was gone. All of us were left behind in a way.
John Bachar was the rock police all by himself when I learned to put up new routes. He would watch your style of ascent through binoculars, and remove the route if the style was not up to snuff. He liked my style, and began to mentor me. It was I who trained him up for his still amazing free solo of Father Figure in Joshua tree national monument. John fell from an easy route after sustaining injuries in a pretty serious car accident.
Indeed, eventually it was thought that i was mentor material, and i had a few proteges. One of them, Andrew Barnes, was one of the better climbers that i had even seen by the time he failed on a free solo in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. His mother became a good friend during the long morning period.
I can tell you, as a survivor, that it is awkward to rub shoulders with the loved ones of a high adventure athelete who has fallen. They were not a soldier, fighting and dying for some cause. But, there was something driving them to take risks. What is that something?
If you are not like that, it is going to be tough to understand. Here is a little history from my mom: Alf was a highly sensitive baby. He cried very readily in response to a light that was not that bright, or a sound that was not that loud.
To me, the light was blinding, and the sound was deafening. I was always on alert, looking for danger. This sensitivity is great when you need to learn something, or are listening to a great concert. But, it sucks most of the time.
Another feature of this sensitivity is that you can be hypnotized by concentrating on something. So, an ant walking around on a little mound right by one eye might be all that you need for an hour or 2 of amazing entertainment. Do you see it? This trance can be used to block out the constant danger warnings. I have been after the trance because it quiets or silences the constant danger siren that otherwise dominates perception.
I know, i am writing it, and this makes no sense. A person such as I have described is the last human on earth that you would expect to take part in extreme activites. Wouldn't they turn off the lights and pull the shades; install earplugs; and curl up into a ball in bed? [i hope that you saw the semi colons!]
Some highly sensitive people do it that way. It does not work though, and those that try it kill themselves after a while. The secret is finding activities that put you into the zone for a long time, without killing you right away. I can attest that climbing a really tall cliff with just your fingers and toes fits the bill! You can zone out in perfect oblivion for hours if you have the right stuff. If you do not have the right stuff, what is the point of being alive anyway?
'Normal' folk work the same equation as highly sensitive people. But, they always come up with 'life is frigging great, please continue!' while the HSP constantly arrives at 'life sucks, it is past time to depart!' They get a break when they lift their violin, or create a sculpture, or pull off their clothes and try to tackle a tall cliff.
Normal people do not do that, because they have plenty of fun eating food and mating and raising kids. They do not require a trance to give them a break from living in a kind of Hell.
I have given quite a bit of thought to physical reasons behind this HSP phenomenon. The brain is actually made up of two totally separate lobes. The corpus colostum, where they join, is a kind of filter than lets some thoughts through. Some of the really dark times seem like a fight between those lobes. The 'voices' that some hear could be the two lobes duking it out. In some respects, they are two different people.
In my case, i have very high eye pressure, and always have. My mother had the same. Gloucoma is the scary medical word. It is swelled up eye balls. Well, the eye balls are just a part of the brain that can be seen, and that sees. Who needs conspiracy theories with reality is this tripped out? Anyhow, i now believe that swelled eyballs indicate a swelled brain.
I looked at a bunch of new scholarly papers about canabis. It is the only natural substance that immediately brings down the swelling in the eye, and perhaps in the brain. It was funny, because the researchers also pointed out that it lowers brain size. They totally missed the point, because they seemed to be trying to prove that cannabis was a very dangerous thing to ingest. I suggest that the brain along with the brains light sensors are a bit swelled up in folk like me. It sure as heck feels like that too!
So, for people who are extreme examples of the Highly Sensitive Person, seemingly absurd risk taking actually prolongs life. Each climb or jump or whatever is like a suicide attempt that will not be considered suicide. If it is sucessful, there is a wonderful respite from pain, and a glow that lasts for a day or 2. If not, well, you are gone, and do not have to clean up the mess => You are the mess!
Each interesting occasion resets the clock, making life well worth living. Ordinary life does not have that effect. It puts the HSP further and further in the red, where a tremendous amount of fun is needed to 'break even'.
HSPs are not mentally ill. Their brains are different than normals, but they are not damaged. In fact, too much sense information gets through the filters, and that is what is unpleasant. HSPs make up roughly 15% of each species of animals. For deer, it is the skinny one with no mate that is always looking around nervously while the others are mating and gorging themselves on branches.
A researcher named Dr. Elaine Aron studies HSPs. When I typed the letters 'hsp' into google, she was the second entry from the top.
If you want more information, or wish to see if I made this HSP stuff up myself, you can look online. And in case you were wondering, i do have suggestions that can help HSPs to feel a greater sense of reward from life. It is possible to mitigate the worst risks, and to use mental tricks to put off the seemingly necessary semi-suicides, but an HSP can not practice, or try really hard, and become a 'normal'. HSPs live short, very interesting lives. You know them, because the ones who survive long enough become your favorite actors/actresses, authors, film makers and artists. The need for the trance is a stronger motivation than money, fame, love, or anything else.
End of 'Why do You do it?'
by Alf Randell
alfrandell@gmail.com
