Adrenaline Rush

How sad is a person’s life when he’s willing to pay for the opportunity to have bulls with long horns run after him? No, this wasn’t that famous yearly event in Spain. It happened in Petersburg, Virginia, where 4000 folks paid $30 a head to be chased by bulls down a quart-mile dirt track at a speedway. Some 8000 others paid an admission fee to watch the madness and possibly bloody goring that might occur. It was the first of ten planned bull runs that will occur throughout the country.

One woman said, "I just didn't want to die, to get trampled by bulls and die.” Then she added, "It was a rush ... a shot of adrenalin."

That seems to be a growing desire of Americans: they want to experience something “more” than what every-day life offers. Millions of people participate in thrill-seeking activities such as skydiving, mountain jumping, and vehicle racing. I’ve never understood any of it. First, why would anyone jump out of a perfectly good plane in order to soar through the skies attached to a piece of cloth? With my luck, the parachute would fail, and I’d hit the ground at approximately 100-plus miles per hour. The fall doesn’t hurt; it’s the sudden stop that causes the pain.

Mountain jumping, as I call it, is a relatively new thing. Crazy people stand on mountain tops and simple dive off. They wear a suit that is designed to catch the wind so that their bodies are buoyed throughout the drop. In truth, these participants look like flying squirrels.

One wrong move and they become “greasy spots” on the rocky faces of the mountains they attempt to fly by.

Other adrenaline junkies ride “crotch rockets” at the speed of light down narrow or around twisting roads. Some people swim with sharks or dive from cliffs in pursuit of that “high” that comes from cheating serious injury or death.

I just don’t get it. Sure, life can sometimes wear on all of us. The demands of work and family can weigh us down. Hoping there’s enough money to meet monthly needs sometimes worries us.

Still, it’s those same low times that make the smallest of things so special. In my way of thinking, nothing is much more rewarding than sitting on the porch on a summer evening and hearing the cicadas and seeing the lightning bugs. Catching a glimpse of deer by the road or on a golf course takes my breath every time.

Being with my kids and grandson and wife is more fulfilling than any jump from a plane or harrowing 200 mile-per-hour ride in a race car. The most exciting things in our lives should be those that involve the family, nature, and home.

I write a blog titled “The Common Is Spectacular.” Many have advised me to change the name since the URL address is too long and too easy to mispsell. I’ve resisted because that title states my philosophy on life. The daily things are the best, the ones that we recall half a century later. The over-the-top experiences in life bring on rushes of adrenaline. However, when the rush from one is done, what replaces it is exhaustion. Our energies are depleted, and we’re left dormant until they are replaced.

It would be nice if folks could find the same happiness being chased by the kids as they do when bulls chasing them. That kind of activity is much safer, cheaper, and rewarding in the long run. I’ll save my energies for these less stressful kinds of adrenaline rushes.