Ah youth. As a teen, I often swam in a white-water river in the Allegheny Mtns. When the boys were feeling particularly macho, they’d jump off the old car bridge into the river. Not one to let the boys show me up, I’d follow suit. I’d say the jump was “only” about 25 feet, but the single lane metal grid deck with cars rumbling by, plus the fact that the “safe” area of deep enough water (without sub-surface rocks) was only about 12’ x 12’ certainly made the jump seem as intimidating as 10 meters.
Now a days, just the thought of getting into a bathing suit in front of a camera would be enough to say no thanks, let alone the dive itself.
The film showed very little intellectual discussion of the dilemma at all (though the young man explaining to his friend “My head says do it but my heart says no” was brilliant). But it’s totally a thing, I promise! Read the comments in the original article. Hundreds of people earnestly justifying why they would or would not jump, and explaining why they did or didn’t at those moments in their own lives.
I guess the behaviorist explanation it is that people are consumed in an extremely immediate experience at the moment (another young man tells his friend “you can talk, I’m just not really present”), and it’s not until later that they create a justification and narrative for their decision. The film is great because it keeps us only in that moment.
I went along as a parent with a class trip to an amusement park last year - shepherding half a dozen 11 year olds around the rides. The park has one very old, famous wooden rollercoaster which is a wild and not very comfortable ride.
Only 2 of the kids went for a ride on the coaster. My favourite line from one of the kids who opted out ‘I’d go on it but it’s boring.’ That coaster is many things, but ‘boring’ is definitely not on that list.
The one time I did a 134 m (440 ft) bungee jump, I recall that twice, I issued the mental command to jump with full intention of doing it, moved forward, and found myself surprised to still be on the platform. Apparently there’s some sort of safety interlock in my head that I hadn’t been aware of. I’d love to have a video of me up there genuinely attempting to jump and failing.
(When I finally succeeded in jumping, after remembering that those who chicken out don’t get refunds, I found myself face down in free fall, involuntarily clawing and stair-cllimbing at the air. I consciously told myself there was nothing to grab. But it wasn’t until several seconds later that I was able to stop attempting it and just enjoy the experience. In hindsight, the psychological revelations of the pre-jump and first few seconds falling were the most interesting part. Well, that, and my friend totally showing me up by following me with a photo-perfect swan dive on his first try. A-hole )
I used to jump off of the 10 meter board all the time. Only tried to actually dive twice - the first time went well (seemed like a nice dive), the second one (last one) resulted in a 10 meter back-flop (echoed like crazy – received a round of applause when I emerged from the water).
Then again, I used to jump from about the same height out of our barn into a small pile of hay (little pieces of dried grass feel like knitting needles when you hit them just right from that height) – of course, I would only do that when nobody was home…
Edit: we also used to do a running jump into Snake Pit falls at Amnicon falls WI State park when we were kids… The falls are just 25 feet high, but the point where we jumped off opposite them was at least 30-35 feet. The worst thing about that one was if you had a bit too much momentum and landed right at the base of the falls, because the falling water would suck you under and put you in a barrel roll.
Snake Pit Falls http://www.gowaterfalling.com/waterfalls/snakepit.shtml
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