Essay 6. “Dangerous Activities. Why Are People Attracted to Taking Risks?”

Some years ago, we did not have cell phones, TV, computers and other devices we have today. Those days we were supposed to work physically in most cases. There was no email those days. So, if someone wanted to write a letter to someone, it has to be hand written and sent through the mail. After several days or even weeks, the letter came to the recipient.

Today we have many devices which make our life easier. Nowadays, many people don’t do any physical activity: they just are going to work, sitting there for several hours and then going to home. Many physical activities are substituted by mechanisms: cars, tractor, etc. So, we just don’t need to do much physical work.

This situation may look very comfortable. Therefore, one Greek philosopher said: “Life is activity”. So, such life style makes us unsatisfied.

People who have lack of physical activity just try to compensate it. They do bungee-jumping, diving, parachute jumping and so on.

Another cause of why people are attracted to taking risks is in our past. Our world in the past was a very dangerous place. Currently we are still prey for predators. Every outdoor trip was very dangerous and risky. I believe those days are still in our memory. We can do not realize it. We can do not understand it. Therefore, this is our past and our genetic memory stores information about those times.

So, many of our ancestors were hunters and warriors in the past. Today we have a much more comfortable life, but most of us still need to be a hunter, a warrior, etc. Because of that, someone is going to be a master in martial arts, someone will learn how to do parachute jumps, and someone will just dive into the deep ocean.

Of course, there are just crazy and insane people who can do unbelievable actions. I think in some cases there is just not sense and reasons. They do it because they like it. They like it because nobody else can repeat that or everybody are looking at them. They’re popular; they’re unique and not like everyone, etc. This people always do something other people may not do. If everyone will do diving or bungee-jumping, these crazy people will not have doing that – because everyone will be doing that. They will try to do something different.