when you are in free fall during a skydive, or the explosion of
sensation you experience when you eat a new unexplainable flavor
for the very first time, or the calm, Zen-like, focus that comes when
you scuba dive in rivers with bull sharks and alligators during
storms. Like someone offering a slice of their grandmother’s
beloved German chocolate cake, they nearly pleaded with me to
try the things they love to do. “Try it, just TRY IT!”
The thing is, I can’t. I can’t experience these activities as
high sensation-seekers do. I’m not physically or psychologically
wired for it. Even if I did try, I couldn’t experience it through
a high sensation-seeker’s lens. It would just be a hodgepodge of
panic and alarm for me (mostly panic).
This realization is part of what has made me appreciate that
high sensation-seeking is a really special trait. It can be like
a superpower, or it can turn into a super problem. When it’s used
for good, it can be beneficial, even healing and protective. But like
with most superpowers, it also has a dark side and when sensation-
seeking runs amuck, it can be used for ill and even destroy the
sensation-seekers’ lives and those around them.
To close, I want to explore this final realization and explain
why, after much reflection, I think high sensation-seeking is closer
to being a superpower than a super problem and I want to explore
how it is used for good by the high sensation-seekers around us
every day.Living without Fear
One of the most prominent characteristics of high sensation-
seekers – especially those with high scores on thrill- and adventure-
seeking and disinhibition – is their seeming lack of fear. Most of us
would never consider jumping from the Perrine Bridge in Idaho,
because our natural survival instinct would kick in. The average
person also wouldn’t intentionally eat deadly pufferfish or blurt out
whatever we want in public just to see the reaction our words
provoke in others. Anxiety – whether it’s social anxiety or the
very real threat of death – keeps our behavior in check.
Indeed, fear has always been essential to our survival.
Without it, we probably wouldn’t have made it very far. The fight
or flight response protects us from danger both real and imagined.
Fear is so essential, so utterly primeval that it is almost hard-wired
into one of the deepest areas of our nervous system, the amygdala.159 / Super Power or Super ProblemDownloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Access paid by the UCSF Library, on 11 Nov 2019 at 14:18:43, subject to the Cambridge