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Re: [RC] Adventure 4 Boredom//was: A different and interestingview on the Derby - Beverley H. Kane, MD

Title: Re: [RC] Adventure 4 Boredom//was: A different and interesting view on the Derby
This is really beginning to sound like a flat earth thesis. You know...the people who were outraged and panicked that Columbus was going to sail West to India. They knew he was going to slide off the edge of the earth.

There are a lot less risky “adventures” that can cure boredom. Endurance riding is one of them, and I don’t think any of us does it for that reason. We live in an age of Xtreme sports. Each victory extends the idea of what the human body is capable of. “The Body—the final frontier.”

The contestants in the Mongol Derby were highly screened through a series of applications and phone interviews. The ride mgt reserves the right to DQ them after the orientation and training session, leaving a few elite athletes willing to pioneer an outrageous idea. Why? Because it’s there. It is human nature to attempt the seemingly impossible. “Boredom” is a projection.

We will learn a lot about sports medicine and human physiology from this daring ride.

To me the participants are more like adventurers that expand human knowledge and the dispel prejudices about what is possible--astronauts; mountaineers that scale K2, Everest, Annapurna, Dhaulagiri, (who often die); Olympic athletes—than some jaded, wealthy, spoiled tourist at the pyramids who buys into a safe bet where many have gone before and then leaves his horse and takes his marbles and goes home when he doesn’t find an ice cold Starbucks Mocha out there in the Sahara.

Beverley



On 7/2/09 1:53 AM, someone wrote:

one of the most serious issues bothering me....the issue of motivation of riders...adventure as a cure for boredom.?



Replies
[RC] A different and interesting view on the Derby, Maryanne Gabbani