Picture this: You are currently standing on a platform, 720 ft. above ground. You try to reach over your itchy back without unlatching that large elastic cord delicately attached to you – your only hope in surviving this jump. Then you realize you have just hurled yourself out into the air and there is nothing more you can do but feel that whip of the wind and listen to your skyrocketing heartbeat. Congratulations, you have just survived bungee jumping!
It is definitely not unlikely for anyone to have experienced the rush from the brush of danger. Everyday, thousands of people strap on a parachute, tread on the highest peak, or just jump off a cliff, to hell with it. But while others find this as a mere attraction, some are actually more inclined to live with the infamous thrill of such sensation—the adrenaline junkies.
The pitfall pioneers
The absurd and the bizarre, the unsightly of the unsightly—most of us have seen it and maybe have even wished to experience the despicable and the psychedelic. Our minds run nervy while the UK wilderness survivor Bear Grylls races against the perils of the wilderness, our knees feel feeble as professional base jumper Jeb Corliss gambles between life and death. These pioneers of gut-wrenching pitfalls and catch-22s are proof that you don’t need to get bitten by a spider to climb walls or spring forth into the air. Oh, and let’s not even start with Jack Osbourne leaping off of ocean ledges while risking a bone-wreck.
Fresh meat
While we look admire these venturesome yet foreign personas, there are actually people around us also possessing that will for thrill—people we do not expect to be driven by the venom of adrenaline rushing in their veins. Young people themselves are nowadays emerging from the tidal waves of mischief and mayhem, possessing a shocking resolute and desire for the covert dangers of thrill.
“You feel like you can do anything that you want while letting go of your stress,” 15 year-old Mabri Casem shows a glint of mischief as she recalls the last time she went cliff jumping in the Philippines and braving the extreme rollercoasters in Japan. Brimming with youth and a low-keyed vibrance, the ecstatic relief brought about by her experience was too obvious.
Meanwhile, the reserved 16 year-old Triccia Tolentino is surprisingly a closet daredevil herself. “I feel like when you ride extreme rides, it’s more of something that it’s harder to finish.” Recounting the story behind her skydiving experience in Singapore. For her, skydiving is something not everyone was daring enough to go through, and that pushes Triccia to do all these.
The leap of faith
Why in the world would one risk jumping into deepest depths or hop on the most insane rides that could potentially cause death? Do people just suddenly start being adrenaline junkies out of the blue? Do they wake up one day and decide to jump in their swimming suits and take the highest plunge?
For Triccia, her love for the extremes started the first time she went to the amusement park back when she was very young. She felt the urge to ride one of the highest and fastest rides but was too short to ride it. She recounts that a few years later when she had grown past the minimum height requirement, she rode it thrice.
Plunging into the ultimate high and delving deep into manic lows, the want for adrenaline through the company of coasters and high cliffs set Mabri’s innate daredevil to bloom. It may have been her only chance to grab the opportunity of feeling that weightless freedom if she never took that jump – that leap of faith.
Tips from the dauntless
“Don’t give into peer pressure. The more scared you’ll be when it feels like you’re not doing it out of your own will. If you really want to do it, then decide to do it. Don’t let your friends decide for you,” Triccia states. Hearing this, it all seemed like some usual child’s play but beyond the confines of those words was an unexplainable feeling of ease and ecstasy.
Adrenaline junkies cliff jump, sky dive, and ride insane rides because they love the rush, but the euphoria felt when they endure that nerve-wrecking ordeal definitely plays them a gratifying rhapsody.
The willingness to defy the odds while young and reaching the peak despite the peril, there’s definitely more to it than just impulsively jumping off with a parachute or flying high in cloud nine. Above all, it was cultivating courage and the eventual absence of fear to face not just the thrill of the park rides, but the ride of life itself.
