Humans have the ability to accomplish such amazing things. It never ceases to amaze me to see or hear of someone accomplish an astounding feat. For example, Alex Honnold, a twenty-something year old kid from Sacramento, is pretty much the world's best free solo rock climber. At 23, he was the first person to ever free solo climb the North face of Half Dome in Yosemite - and he did it in the time it took me to run a half marathon (2 hours and 50 minutes). I'm in an awesome rock climbing class this semester and we had to watch a video of Alex's adventure on the first day of class. Below is a short clip from the video (the whole thing can be seen here, if you are willing to ignore the Chinese advertisements).
Watching him climb gives me butterflies just thinking about what it takes to do what he does. While I could never hope to solo climb any sort of rock, it is so inspiring to know that someone out there is doing this. Something that no one ever thought could be done before. As time progresses, more and more people accomplish new things and set new records. For one thing, we have newer technologies which allow people to learn and to dream of doing novel things. For another, being exposed to so much more of the world through technologies such as the internet and social networking, people are more inclined to take risks in all aspects of life. I'm sure there was someone who might have had the ability and stamina to do what Alex does, but no one dared to try in the past. It wasn't quite socially acceptable to climb a wall without safety precautions in the past, but in this day and age, anyone can generally do what they want no matter how stupid it may seem. After all, climbing a 2000+ foot rock face without any safety gear does seem like a pretty dumb idea. But our society rewards boldness when it is met with opportunity and success. And Alex was lucky enough to successfully show the world his talents in his own bold endeavors.
People will always find new ways to go and do whatever they want in this world. It's admirable. It's impressive. As long as the world loves to hear stories about people who can create and accomplish astounding feats, there will always be people to do them.
