Jennifer Murray, the first woman to circle the planet by helicopter in 2000, was attempting to loop the globe again via the North and South poles when she crashed in Antarctica and nearly died. (Her next attempt, three years later, was a success.)
Now, just over a week after 19 year old Matt Guthmiller became the youngest pilot to circumnavigate the globe (flying 29,000 miles in a leased 1981 Beechcraft Bonanza), another teen, Haris Suleman, and his father have died in the attempt.
All of this raises the question: Will I die on the He-Dog Run?
I mean, who knows. The He-Dog Run is certainly more dangerous than, say, sitting at home watching Formula 1 races. It’s more dangerous than walking to Safeway for some spinach. Or maybe it isn’t, since people presumably die doing the latter on occasion and maybe the former as well. This planet can be a dangerous place.
The inevitability of death may seem a tad somber a topic for this chipper little corner of the web, but it really needn’t be. As every creature that has lived and died on this Earth has in time discovered, it’ll get you in the end. Question is, how?
I’m reminded of Chris Pontius doing the Gumball 3000 with the Jackass crew in 2001. Delivered with his trademark smirk from the back of a speeding Jaguar, Pontius said:
“I know we’re going to die on this race. What I don’t know is when.”
He didn’t die on that race in the end, but when walking or driving or gumballing in particular the possibility always is there. And a Cobra, let’s not forget, is among the flimsiest and least protected vehicles I’m ever likely to drive.
Is danger part of the appeal of the He-Dog Run? I’d like to say no, since it sounds more civilized, but in the end it probably is. I do tend to enjoy a challenge, and where vehicles are concerned this challenge seems often to involve going faster, further, or pushing the limits in some other way. Guiding a race car around a track at speed, for instance, really is a wholly engrossing experience–the best example I know of what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls “flow.”
That particular feeling is essentially the cognitive reward for applying full concentration to something that legitimately demands it. The problem with those types of things is that when you screw up, as you inevitably do, a rich tapestry of consequence awaits. At least most modern race tracks have decent runoff.
I’m nowhere near good enough at rotorcraft flying to experience this feeling there yet. (To achieve the “flow” state, as you’ve perhaps noticed, the task can be neither too easy for you nor too hard. The former doesn’t engage you enough and the latter is just frustrating.) I can imagine though that once I’m passably competent, long stretches of pleasant concentration await at those controls as well.
So, engrossing activities, at least for me, seem to come hand in hand with a certain degree of risk. Mitigating and managing and minimizing that is part of what keeps things interesting. It’s not reckless–in fact it’s the opposite of that. It’s about navigating risk, not dancing in traffic.
I say that to say this: It would no doubt be a drag to actually die on the He-Dog Run, chiefly because it would mean I wouldn’t complete it and therefore would fail at the one and only goal I now have. But compared with other options–dying while commuting or from some heart ailment or by choking on an olive or falling through a skylight–it’s really not that bad. All else equal why not go in pursuit of something interesting, and leave your pals with a decent story for reunion dinner?
And if death does come–at any point, really–I hope to pull a Ra’s Al Ghul. At the end of Batman Begins as he hurtles toward imminent death on a derailed sky-train, Liam Neeson’s character takes his final moment to pause, close his eyes, and greet his end in peace.
Anyway, back to global circumnavigation and open cars. I can certainly understand that youngsters with decades still to live or family-minded folks with broods to support might balk at what seems like unnecessary risk-taking, and quite rightly so. That’s fine and as it should be, and it leaves more heli time for the rest of us. But that is not a reason for no one to do it.
Can the He-Dog Run can be executed safely and successfully? Yes, I believe it can. Does that mean it is without risk? Certainly not.
Mr. Suleman’s fatal trip was doable as well, as Mr. Guthmiller recently showed. And Jennifer Murray’s ill-fated arctic trip also was doable, as she herself later showed. Nothing ventured means nothing gained. Meaningful reward does require some risk.
And if the He-Dog Run were as easy and as safe as walking to Safeway, I wouldn’t be posting about it and you wouldn’t be reading it. So it is, and so it goes.
For now, let’s hope we all make it that far. It’s a ways off still: years and years on a planet that’s dangerous indeed.