Many people in America work at jobs where they are separated from Nature and other people, sectioned off in cublicles, plugged into a machine, doing work which neither challenges their intellect nor is fulfilling personally. As a result, a separation forms not only between others and from Nature itself, but from themselves, and their purpose in life. A feeling develops that are not living life to the fullest. Much of our interaction these days is "virtual interaction", taking place between us and a screen. We are capable of doing just about anything virtually: shopping, sex, even skiing. Our lack of contact with genuine, hands on experience, however, leaves a nagging feeling of unsatisfaction with the lack of physical control that we possess over our lives, and a fear that life is slipping away, untouched. Extreme sports are an extreme reaction to this dillema - they put one as close to Nature as possible, literally flush with the forces, be it gravitational or otherwise. The urge to push oneself against nature is similar to one of those "every action has an equal and opposite reaction" equations. These sports put one "up against the line", so to speak, testing our will to survive and forcing a connection with nature, with ourselves. There is a paradox here: in placing our life in the hands of natural forces, we take back responsibility and regain control, in a sense, over our existence. We are making a conscious choice to place our lives at risk, and thus taking on the ultimate responsibility, in a sense. Nature may be acting in opposition against us, but, the goal, according to Michael Bane, author of Over the Edge: a regular guy's odessey in Extreme Sports, is really to be in the "flow", to feel in tune and fully connected to the natural force, to the point where you are acting almost completely instinctually. He argues that extreme sports push you to this place by stretching the limits of what you think you can do - that is, pushing what seems rationally possible. In this way, you gain ultimate control and connection through your body. The worth of your life is proven, in an odd way, by the risk you put it in.

Our urge to "go to the edge", is not only a reaction against technology and the inherent sedentariness prevelant in our workplaces. The US is evolving into a society constantly reaching after extremes in other realms as well. The pace has picked up - both technologically and in the consumer world. Big is no longer good enough, things must be enormous, high-powered, rugged. SUV's are a great example of our need for bigger and better. It used to be that a simple pick-up truck was good enough to get one off the beaten path. Now we have the Ford Expedition, a monster of a car, with all the features of a luxery sedan, but a good foot and a half off the ground and wide as a tank. While these types of automobiles have become the hippest cruisers around for the wealthy, ironically they are posed by advertisers as the greatest links ever to the Great Outdoors. This is just one example of our never-satiated quest for something new, something more exciting. Our patienece level is dissolving (perhaps due to the faster pace of the media - a movie is not a movie anymore without at least three really good, firey explosions.) and it is taking more and more to keep us entertained. Technology has played a hand in our impatience - at the rate it is moving it has become necessary to upgrade ones computer every three years or so and a beeper is outdated maybe a year after consumption. (Even beepers are now available in "extreme styling"!) In light of sports, a simple bicycle ride is too mundane for many of us now, perhaps too gentrified. The elegant road bike evolved into the burley mountain bike, from which we now have downhill racing, where bikers fly down gravelly slopes at 50 mph or more. Technology has taught us well: its rapid evolution has shown us to push the envelope time and time again, and that there is no where we can't go.

While technology, and in particular the success of the internet, has taught us about the benefits to be reaped by risk-taking, it has also entombed us to a degree. We no longer need to go outside to satiate cuiosity, find answers, gather data. Everything is at our fingertips, easier to obtain than ever. While some cheer at the extreme convenience of it all, others are restless in their chairs. It is precisely this restlessness with technology that may lead people to feel the urge to climb icy caverns and bike through Alaska in wintertime. Our toes are tapping from sitting at desks for too long, both the speed of the internet and the lack of physical motion involved with surfing it has created a need not just burn off some fuel, but rocket ourselves through physically-harrowing challanges.

Bane's book surrounds around a list he made ("The List"), of 13 extreme sports and his journey fulfilling this list. He writes: "[The List] will allow me to reach out and touch...something. Something desireable,something mythical." This touches on an important point, namely, our need to do something which is almost super-human, something not rooted in rationality, not grounded in science. Technology's continuing monopoly on our lives has furthered the religion of science, of rationality, of moving away from myth, magic, and straight-up adventure. We are bound to this world by so many wires and and cords, continually plugged into a constant stream of electrical currents. While surfing the internet may at times feel akin to being lost in another world; physically/spirtiually/emtionally, we are not bound to it. The internet cannot move our adrenaline, or place us on the edge, in the flow that Bane talks about. As far out into cyberspace as you can go, you will always have a sort of lifeline back (you are safe) - the internet is still grounded in science and machinary, and physically, you haven't gone anywhere. Fully connected through circuitry, we are atttatched to our seats. While virtual reality may be entertaining, we are desiring an other-worldliness, to feel the rush of unconnectedness to rational technology, to rational anything. The spiritual void which has been carved by science is attempting to be filled in the far reaches of the wilderness, as though the number of times you come close to be swallowed up by Nature, but live to tell the tale, brings you that much closer to enlightenment. Church service is too pristine. We are not patient enough for meditation. We are insured, insulated, heated and delivered to. To the extent that our lives have become stablalized and mapped out through computers and high-tech software (cutting down on the possibility of the unexpected, of chance happenings), so is the extent that we throw caution to the winds risen. In an article on risk taking in TIME magazine, they write: "Without some expression of risk, we may never know our limits and therefore who we are as individuals. 'If you don't assume a certain amount of risk', says paraglider pilot Wade Ellet, 51, 'you're missing a certain amount of life.' And it is by taking risks that we flirt with greatness." The need for greatness can be translated into the search to find something in us that is higher than what we can physically touch/feel, than who we are on a day to day basis. To find a piece of us that is perhaps linked to the heavens. Some call this spirituality or spiritual connection. Searching for spiritual connection is nothing new, we've been doing it for thousands of years - the signifigance lies in the places and the ways that we now go about obtaining it. An ice climber in Bane's book talks about the feeling she gets when she's climbing, saying: "...there's this feeling of, I don't know, accomplishment? But it's not accomplishment exactly. It just feels good, you know, like magic or something." This nails it. A feeling that is not grounded in anything solid, outside of ourselves, that we get to by our own physical doing, and feels like something out of this world.

The irony with trying to escape technology through extreme sports is that they have a technology all their own. Most extreme sports require mountains of expensive and complicated equipment, with various gradations in price and complications. A hiking boot is not just a hiking boot anymore, nor is a ski jacket a ski jacket. Fancy equipment comes complete with lists of jargon, intended to make a novice feel like a pro. (The expression "extreme sports" was first launched into the mainstream by the North Face clothing company in the 1970's.) Granted, for many of these sports, the equipment is absolutely necessary, an essential element - it is the kayak that gets you down the river, after all. However, much of the time the apparal is advertised as the thing that will get you up the mountain. People purchase loads of fancy clothing, only to discover that it is their own bodies that must do the walking. By that same token, there has been a backlash against equipment for some, who insist on rock climbing without ropes, or ascending Everest without oxygen. The exhileration (the spiritual connection via adrenaline?) is supposedly made all the more intense by chucking all technology over the cliff, being completely dependent on ones own facilities. The out-of-controlness that we feel by hanging onto the edge of life retaliates against the controlled world of technology, of rote and tiresome work, of the endless hierarchies of the workplace. To reiterate, being our of control is a choice, therefore placing you at the healm, making you responsible for your own life. This is acheived through full - throttle physicality.

To sum up, extreme sports may be a direct reaction against the extremes to which technology has invaded our lives. People feel the need to get as far as possible away from the fax machines, the computers, the internet, the schedules, and the lines drawn. People are feeling stifled by technology, by monotonous and uncreative work. Out of the desire to be fully human and then some - to grab a piece of a super-human part of themselves, even - they go to extremes, they push the envelope. Technology has set an example by continually outdoing itself and moving at a faster and faster pace - we have to keep up, and in doing so, have made our lives more and more frantic. We must constantly strive after "the most". By the same vein, technology has also sapped some magic out of our lives, some immaterial spirtiualism due to it's heavy base in reality, in laws, in science, and in the concrete. People engaged in extreme sports talk about pushing the body to a degree that you "get into a flow", or a place where "magic" happens. In doing so, they giv e their lives meaning; by reaffirming their mortality, a purpose in life is gained. A degree of control is taken back in the action of putting it all on the line - of risking complete lack of control. This is the other side of the coin of having too many things cushioned, too much home delivery, too many buttons to push.