Adrenaline Junkies

[Pete H]

[ QUOTE ]
Meh. It turns out the worst thing you can say at a funeral is "...but he died doing what he loved doing."

[/ QUOTE ]

I disagree 100%.

Of course it sucks if your friend or family member dies, but I think it sucks even more if someone quits what he/she loves to do because of someone else than him/herself.

Most people I know (myself included) doing extreme sports choose willingly to risk their life because that makes their life worth living.

There's been some studies that many (if not most) adrenaline junkies have regularly much lower serotonine levels than "normal" people and they do what they do to feel "normal". From my own experience I can tell this is very much the truth.

A short but happy life is worth much, much more than a long but miserable one.

[adsman]

[ QUOTE ]
Most people I know (myself included) doing extreme sports choose willingly to risk their life because that makes their life worth living.


[/ QUOTE ]

I've done a lot of extreme sports and this isn't true for me. It was just something that I found fun and enjoyable. A lot of the time though, to be perfectly honest, I was just [censored]ing myself.

[imitation]

Strangely everytime I fly as we land I think to myself wow this is basically the highest I get over any other drug. I am hugely averse to "extreme sports" which involve being up in the air or some such because I'm petrified of heights. I have no real problems about water sports (but i can't say i've tried any of them in really really dangerous environments).

[Pete H]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Most people I know (myself included) doing extreme sports choose willingly to risk their life because that makes their life worth living.


[/ QUOTE ]

I've done a lot of extreme sports and this isn't true for me. It was just something that I found fun and enjoyable. A lot of the time though, to be perfectly honest, I was just [censored]ing myself.

[/ QUOTE ]
Skydiving or scuba diving are things I find fun and enjoyable, not extreme at all.

[xxThe_Lebowskixx]

[ QUOTE ]
is it weird that i used to enjoy things that made me feel like i could die any second, and now im not very comfortable with that feeling? i used to love flying down the mountain on skiis yelling the whole way and hoping no1 got in my way and also hoping i didnt bang into a mogul and go flying into a tree, but now, i dno im much more reserved i guess. i went sky diving like a year and a half ago, but have no desire to do it again though i think it was an overall enjoyable experience. i dno, i dont have any desire to risk throwing my life away like i used to. why is that?

[/ QUOTE ]

me too. right now i take more pleasure in food and relaxing with a book or movie.

that video is insane!

[xxThe_Lebowskixx]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Most people I know (myself included) doing extreme sports choose willingly to risk their life because that makes their life worth living.


[/ QUOTE ]

I've done a lot of extreme sports and this isn't true for me. It was just something that I found fun and enjoyable. A lot of the time though, to be perfectly honest, I was just [censored]ing myself.

[/ QUOTE ]
Skydiving or scuba diving are things I find fun and enjoyable, not extreme at all.

[/ QUOTE ]
skydiving is pretty dangerous, is it not?

[Ship Ship McGipp]

even though the adrenaline stuff isn't as big as it used to be for me, i'm still in the stages of "i haven't done everythnig i need to do like bungee jump or skydive or whatever but i can envision myself tiring of these things soon"

[Pete H]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Most people I know (myself included) doing extreme sports choose willingly to risk their life because that makes their life worth living.


[/ QUOTE ]

I've done a lot of extreme sports and this isn't true for me. It was just something that I found fun and enjoyable. A lot of the time though, to be perfectly honest, I was just [censored]ing myself.

[/ QUOTE ]
Skydiving or scuba diving are things I find fun and enjoyable, not extreme at all.

[/ QUOTE ]
skydiving is pretty dangerous, is it not?

[/ QUOTE ]
An average skydive isn't that dangerous.

http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/skydiving8.htm

[ QUOTE ]

Risk of Skydiving Accidents
Skydiving is a remarkably popular sport. The United States Parachuting Association has 34,000 members. It estimates that about 350,000 people complete more than 3 million jumps in a typical year.

The big question is always, "How dangerous is skydiving?" Each year, about 30 people die in parachuting accidents in the United States, or roughly one person per 100,000 jumps. Look at the US Skydiving Incident Reports to get an idea of the types of problems that lead to fatalities. If you make one jump in a year, your chance of dying is 1 in 100,000.

How does the fatality rate in skydiving compare to other common activities? Since most adults in America drive cars, let's compare skydiving to driving. Roughly 40,000 people die each year in traffic accidents in the United States [ref]. That's 1.7 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles. Therefore, if you drive 10,000 miles per year, your chance of dying in a car wreck in any given year is something like 1 in 6,000. In other words, we accept a higher level of risk by getting into our cars every day than people do by occasionally skydiving. You would have to jump 17 times per year for your risk of dying in a skydiving accident to equal your risk of dying in a car accident if you drive 10,000 miles per year.

A logical question to ask here is this: Given these statistics, why do we think of skydiving as dangerous and driving a car as safe?

* The first reason has to do with frequency. At 30 per year, fatal skydiving accidents are infrequent. That tends to make each one newsworthy, so you are likely to hear about them. On the other hand, there are about 110 fatal car accidents every day in the United States. In a city of one million people, 160 people die every year in car accidents. If you heard about every car accident, you would go insane, so you only hear about a few of them. That leaves you with the impression that car accidents are infrequent even though they happen constantly.

* The second reason has to do with familiarity. Most people drive every day and nothing bad happens. So our personal experience leads us to believe that driving is safe. It is only when you look at the aggregated statistics that you realize how dangerous driving really is.

[/ QUOTE ]

[VORP]

In my experience bungee jumping was much more frightening than sky diving. 10k feet of exposure was high enough that the sky dive seemed sort of surreal. Stepping off the edge of a 100' tower felt like exactly what it was, definitely a "this doesn't seem like the best idea" moment.

Anyone here have any experience with base jumping? I know a lot of other rock climbers who have moved into it but I'm not sure, it might cross the line between exciting and scary for me.

[sirtimo]

[ QUOTE ]
That video, wow. I am speechless. 15 feet?

[/ QUOTE ]

wingsuit "skimming" is the most insane, crazy, awesome thing evah...

and you just thought those Scandi's were crazy poker players check this out