Sublimulous

The thing which makes us human? The difference between us and all other things?

The concept, production and performance of shadow puppets.

I don't see anything else having shadow puppets. In fact, the medium of shadow puppetry might be our unique trait in the whole wide universe.

But what also makes us human? The motivation of adventure!

To climb to the top, dive to the bottom, to traverse the widest, to travel the fastest, furthest and first. To do it for the only reason of trying to put a perfect fingerprint onto the surface of a blue marble. To high-five God on the most rad half-pipe ever. To push everything to the limit just to find out if it really was ever the limit in the to start with.

It is looking up at the vastness and counting the stars and then vow to one day visit them all.

Adventure is the human condition.

And theatre.

This was brought into sharp focus this week with the news of a man who is going to jump out a hot air balloon at 120,000 feet and skydive toward the ground in a space suit, breaking the speed of sound and hope to tell us all about it when he lands about 10 minutes later. It is, in every sense of the word, an awesome undertaking for a human.

To me it is a combination of this human condition of adventure poetically entwined (if such things can be poetic) with science to create something which is pretty beautiful. Standing, alone looking at the curvature of the earth, only able to hear your own breath in the pressurised helmet and leaping off surely captures the imagination of the spectacular and spiritual.

The very same morning I read about this epic feat I read of another one.

The quote which caught my eye from this 2nd story was this:

"This is on the very edge of what I believe possible"

That is some statement. Considering I would have thought falling from a height of 120,000 feet faster than the speed of sound was pushing boundaries, a man saying this of his own adventure, well, it must be special.

This man, Chris, got his idea when rowing in a lake:
Build a human sized hamster wheel and walk in it to propel himself 66 miles over the Irish sea from Wales to Ireland. For charity.

The very edge of what he believes possible.

Bet he was gutted when the news of the bloke jumping from space broke the same day as his. So much for the weeks of hype building up your effort, Chris.

The guy jumping to Earth has spent 4 years planning, training and exacting on the details to ensure the success of the multi-million dollar project.

Chris expects he might eat 60 Mars Bars when skippering the wheel he built in his shed.

It seems like a perfect case of the sublime to the ridiculous, but in actuality it is difficult to tell which is which. Both are idiotic with no little risk involved and, really, who can say which has more merit than the other when history records humanities great achievements? I say this: Which is truly the ridiculous one?

It's the hamster-man called Chris.