Ask Lemmy

Skydiving. It's super windy and loud. It's a predictable struggle between gravity and air resistance. There's a man firmly pressed up against my bum. You end up back where you started. Super inefficient and uncomfortable mode of transportation.

Marrying.

Did it once and it's going to last until death.

Steal a bicycle.
Snort amphetamines.
Ride on the back of a train.
Unprotected one-night-stand.
Chase away a Grizzly and her cubs.
Climb onto a high-rise rooftop from the outside.
Break into a stadium to see Metallica live for free.
Break into an active US army base to play airsoft.
Break into Chelsea Stadium at night to steal a piece of the pitch.

Looking back, it's a miracle I didn't end up in prison, dead, or worse, expelled.

I once was young and stupid and maxed out the speedometer of my car on a empty highway at the middle of the night. Now I can say I've done it and don't need to do that again. Normally I hardly even drive above the speedlimit.

Gender reassignment surgery.

Go running.

You know when you build something up in your head to be really awful, then you try it and it's exactly that awful?

College while working full time. Four years of barely getting any sleep while working full time and going to school full time. Even my teachers made comments about how late I'm staying up. They can see on their Canvas website that I'm turning in papers at 3 or 4 in the morning.

Fire breathing

For context I'm a professional fire & sideshow performer. I have almost a decade of experience and am fire safety lead for a large fire arts retreat. But the name of the game is risk mitigation and fire breathing is too risky for my taste despite its popularity.

If you go on Wikipedia and type in fire breather, the second result is Fire Breather's Pneumonia. I also personally know many people who have gotten large facial burns or have had to retire due to lung problems caused by excessive fire breathing.

The risks are technically still there with fire eating, which is one of my main skills, but I mitigate it by limiting my exposure and taking breaks. There's also significantly less liquid fuel involved.

Play paintball.

I started playing back in the 80’s when I was in college and everybody used paint guns that could only hold about 15 rounds, and fired one at a time.

I’m way too old to run around in the woods like I did 40 years ago, and the game has completely changed as well. People have guns that can hold hundreds of paintballs and shoot incredibly fast, so the whole strategy is unlike it was. I just don’t find modern paintball enjoyable at all.

Magic mushrooms, or any other psychedelic stuff. I did it three times, and in retrospect I'm not sure if I realized what I was messing with. Unlike being drunk, it actually feels like these instances actually changed me as a person. Not for the worse, but it's still kinda spooky.

On the surface it was just some fun, my brain was being silly and everything felt much more vibrant. But beyond that it actually changed my views on people and concepts. It altered my relationships and ultimately who I am as a person. Looking back, thos stuff seems to put your brain into an entirely different mode of creating and removing connections. It's not just messing with the "RAM" like alcohol, this stuff is writing to disk and making persistent changes.

Excessive speed on a bicycle. Alright, I did it more than once, until a slow car scared the shit out of me.

At one point I lived near a small mountain with a road going up. It was so slow and painful to get up, but a huge thrill going down. I didn’t have a speedometer but it was a 45mph road (and everyone speeds) and I consistently passed cars. It had only one lane in each direction and I regularly passed cars going over 45 mph, by a lot. Then one day I was about to pass the car and she slowed to turn. Panic time, huge continual squeal of my brakes that scared her into accelerating past her turn, and I still zoomed by on the shoulder before I could stop, hundreds of feet beyond.

Clearly way too fast for my vehicle and my (lack of) protective gear

Suspension. I did a superman; 6 hooks in my back (they couldn't pull up skin on my legs to run hooks there, so it was a little... awkward.) It was painful, sure. But the pain fades once you're up there, and then it's...

Boring.

You can't really do anything much. You can swing around, but if you get motion sick then that's not a good idea. I know a number of people that have experienced it as transcendental, and it just wasn't for me. Everything was sore for a few days afterwards, but not bad. It just wasn't for me.

Got born.

after a scuba dive almost went south, I agree on the gut feeling

Paintball with 20-somethings. I expected someone to shoot me in the arse from five feet away for a laugh, I didn't think they'd be on my team.

Go 180 mph on a motorcycle. I've done it, and I won't do it again. I'm a pretty solid rider, but 180 is above my reaction time. Things were behind me before I had a chance to react to them. So, I decided going that fast is stupid, and deadly, and I wont do so again. 120-140 however is manageable. I can react with time to spare. 105 is like a cakewalk. I'm just as comfortable at 105 as I am at 55.