RSLJ: Article 10 Goddamn what a rush…

Those adrenaline junkies out there will know that natural highs induced by placing yourself in situations that create them can be the most rewarding thing people can do. Those of you that don’t are probably the type of person that wouldn’t peer over the edge of a precipice because of the fear that you might fall in. Such people may live to the ripe old age of 83 and die in your sleep but then again living in cotton wool your whole life can’t be too rewarding.

Our brains are wired in complex systems to facilitate the process where by something happens to us and we get rocked by all sorts of awesome feelings, emotions and effects. It’s the euphoria you feel when that little dark-haired angel you have been eyeing all night comes over and starts chatting with you, it’s that major rush you get jumping off a bridge and then the relief when the cord jerks you back to safety, it’s that inexplicable feeling you get when that waterhead in front of you in the Tiger queue quoting about how many double canes and coke he is going to devour when he get in gets bounced instead. It’s these little pleasure situations that make life rewarding.

So everyone’s pleasure scale is different. Some guys have to jump off buildings, antennas, spans and earth with only handkerchiefs to protect them from gravity whereas for other guys they just need catch the next episode of Prison Break. The more extremist your needs the more extreme your requirements are. Problem is that through this reasoning if your trigger event happens so regularly surely the effects will become normal and the euphoria will diminish. (kinda like now that you have met number 1 from 2nd year and realised she is human she doesn’t get your party started like she used to) I think it has something to do with the effect of dopamine re-uptake inhibitors but this isn’t the New Science Medical Journal, it’s the Rockstar Life Journal. And we want to make sure our rockstars don’t have life’s little pleasures taken away from them…


This is the part where I share personal experience. Quite a while back I threw myself off Bloukrans Bridge. Man what rush! It’s hard to equal that. Problem was over Christmas I had to ride the Hulk at Islands of Adventure in Florida more than once to get even close to rivalling the bungee effect. (I’m guessing this is what it is like for Leonardo Dicaprio to sleep with other women after bedding Gisele, you have to do it more than once to get even close) However my argument was proven wrong today.

After dashing across the road (I’m quiiick) to 7eleven to purchase the Cape Times I was absent-mindedly returning to my car and forgot the whole ‘look right, look left, look right again’ golden rule of Road Crossing 101W and I nearly got broadsided by a school lift club. I owe my life to French safety features on a Renault Scenic but I was very nearly the headline of tomorrows Cape Times. (The world mourns: famous rockstar gets murdered in hit and run by lecherous Renault driving rugby mom)

Thing is it was my fault and by the time I had frozen like Earl Rose waiting for a Jerry Collins impact in the 10 channel and she had halted to a stop but a credit card length away from my right hip my brain was firing with so many endorphins I felt like Ben Johnson after winning the 100m final in Seoul 1988, full of euphoria and full of drugs...

This just disproved for me the infinite regress idea that Leo Dicaprio supposedly suffers from. You don’t have to better the situation to better the high. They can come in a variety of little ways and still kick the living daylights out of your synapse firing system.

[Note to self: feeling down and average, don’t drink heavily or throw yourself off a building, just walk across the road without looking]