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By Scott Farrell
Since the dawn of civilization, the desire to cure the sick and
minister the injured has been one of the hallmark traits of mankind.
We have struggled to eliminate disease, heal injuries, overcome
weaknesses and prolong our lives, and today, as we stand on the
brink of the 21st century, the culmination of our medical skill
and scientific knowledge can be summed up in two words:
Bungee jumping.
With the amount of time and effort we've spent in the last 5,000
years learning to tape, stitch, glue and pin one another back together,
you'd think we would be pretty content to sit and enjoy the comforts
of good health and bodily integrity. Instead, while physicians
are devising more effective methods to hold the human body together,
humans are racing out and thinking up ways to defeat the finest
medical technology, such as leaping off a 10,000 story tower with
a mile-long rubber band attached to their ankles.
Of course, bungee jumping is just one of the methods people have
devised to attempt to smash themselves into smithereens. Other
good examples of this behavior are: parasailing, wind surfing,
the Iron Man Triathlon, stock car racing, roller coasters, the
Los Angeles freeway system, and budget vacation packages on ValuJet
airlines.
As otherwise rational persons leap, shoot, throw and hurl themselves
at high rates of speed in the name of recreation, medical professionals
stand by patiently to scrape up the remains and employ the latest
surgical techniques and therapeutic technology in an attempt to
save as many lives as possible -- or, at least, to find some salvageable
donor organs (other than the clearly defective brains).
Not so long ago, a wild fad like bungee jumping would have been
limited to teenagers seeking to overcome the timidity of youth
by engaging in acts which might be considered "brave" or "reckless" or,
technically, "stupid." This would have caused members of the older
generation (meaning "their fathers") to scowl with hairy-browed
displeasure, fold their tattooed arms over their ever-expanding
waistlines and mutter: "Crazy young id-yuts. Why the hell would
you do something like that?" (As if they'd completely forgotten
that night back in 1952 when they drank several six-packs of Schlitz
beer and wound up drag racing backward around "doomsday curve" out
on the interstate.) Today, however, the elder generation has come
to accept these youthful stunts to the degree that many bungee
jump operators must have policies regarding the return of dentures
which wind up at the bottom of the tower during "senior discount
night."
Beyond Bungee
Utilizing physical danger as a form of recreation is nothing new.
Many years ago, anthropologists discovered a ritual among the islanders
of Micronesia called "tower diving," which is much like bungee jumping
without the benefit of federally mandated safety standards.
These islanders are, by nature, a pastoral people who exist peacefully
in their natural surroundings -- fishing, gathering fruit and taking
shelter in the forests during tropical rainstorms. Once a year they hold
an elaborate celebratory ritual where they put their primitive skills
and knowledge to use, not to plant crops or educate their children, but
to build huge wooden towers which they climb to the top of, then tie
vines to their ankles which have been carefully measured (the vines,
not their ankles), and leap off, soaring through the tropical sunlight
with the cool ocean breeze in their hair, until they crash face-first
onto the rocks below.
Occasionally, however, one of them who has been a little more conscientious
about his vine measuring actually survives this ritual and receives the
acclaim and praise of the other islanders as he heads back up the tower
to do it again. (It is, perhaps, worth pointing out that the tower diving
ritual is performed only by men. What a surprise.) Of course, the modern
counterpart of tower diving, bungee jumping, is hardly the first recreational
activity to couple leisure time fun with the threat of painful death.
Before bungee jumping, we had "paint ball games," in which participants
who were not satisfied with the degree of danger offered by mere random
drive-by shootings, voluntarily went into abandoned warehouses and unoccupied
wilderness areas armed with air-powered paint guns to be pursued over
a variety of challenging terrain features -- hills, woods, stone walls,
rattlesnakes, waterfalls, glaciers -- by crazed squadrons of ex-marines
who couldn't find gainful employment in the automotive repair industry.
This sort of shared experience was called "team building," and was sometimes
used as a lesson in leadership and cooperation -- mostly by corporate
VPs who studied business administration during their seven years of college
in order to avoid military service.
Nor is this need for dangerous recreation likely to end with bungee
jumping, which has declined in popularity in the past few months. In
fact, an entire industry has sprouted up around "extreme sports," which
are basically any activities which your mother would disapprove of if
she thought you were doing without supervision. Most popular among this
new breed of sports is mountain biking, which involves riding down treacherous
wilderness paths at speeds approaching 40 mph avoiding trees, boulders,
bears and hikers on a bicycle which provides all the protective qualities
you'd expect from a vehicle made from the aluminum of five recycled soft
drink cans.
Although doctors have been trying to tell us for years that our bodies
are not indestructible, we continue to ignore them, and whatever instinctive
desire has driven us to invent aerobatic windsurfing and bare-handed
rock climbing will probably be responsible for such future fads as full-contact
motorcycle polo, asbestos-suited flamethrower fights and semi-ballistic
catapult rides.
Researchers speculate that there is a part of the human brain which
thrives on the pure adrenaline-pumped rush which results from going beyond
the established limits of safety -- and this part of the brain has made
the medical community rich beyond its wildest imagination. Amidst all
of the bruises, lacerations and fatalities, however, this need to experience
life on the edge has driven us to greatness as well as catastrophe. In
fact, this same desire to transcend the boundaries of safe behavior is
surely the cause of many of the medical and scientific breakthroughs
in Western history. (Where would we be if Sabin had said, "Drink what?
Hell, I'd rather have a martini!")
Innovation is no place for the timid. The bold spirits of today are
destined to become the Saulks, Pasteurs and Cricks of tomorrow by employing
the same "don't tell me what's impossible" attitude in the lab as on
the bungee platform. And, just as in any potentially risky activity,
doctors will be on hand to pick up the pieces afterward rather than trying
to suppress those adventurous spirits by preventing an activity which
might seem, on the surface, to be nothing more than a foolish stunt.
Remember, the "downhill roller blade speed slalom alligator wrestlers" of
today will certainly be the medical trendsetters of the 21st century
-- at least, the ones who survive.
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