RIP Dean Potter

[mercurial]

There are categorically different types of risk when it comes to all of these types of "extreme" activities. There is the skills deficit, which is most prevalent for newer participants, where you simply lack the muscle memory and instinct to prevent an easily avoidable accident. Then there is the confidence surplus, where you have enough skill that the activity seems easy, and you let your guard down a little too much.

The final risk category is, IMO, the most insipid because it kills the best of the best: it's the law of numbers and probability, which is to say that for many of these types of activities there is a very small amount of risk that is almost unavoidable unless you are ridiculously anal about safety. This one is the doozy because it is so imperceptibly small at any given moment, yet over the course of a lifetime it becomes an enormous risk. This is the sort of risk that kills people like Dean Potter, and it's the sort of thing where if he really understood it, he would've know that regardless of his skill, it is suicidal to recurrently buzz a rock wall in a wingsuit.

 

[littlebeast]

I was re-thinking things this morning and have had a shift in my perspective on the whole incident. There does seem to be a cross-over on Deans part from the requirements for being a world class speed climber into a more destructive and risky realm and given his age of 43 it's very possible that he was feeling the effects of aging and was subconsciously trying to prove otherwise which very well could have pushed him into more risky behavior.

I know for myself, I feel more alive when I'm riding a motorcycle than most other times, I could see how that drive to feel alive could be taken to extremes as somebody gets older.

i love this insight. reminds me of how my SO has coached me with regard to riding. he bought me my first bike, made me go through training, and then handed me the key to it and said 'don't make me regret this'. he's been steady in the background, always advising on transitions in advancing awareness, skill, confidence, complacency, boldness, etc., and how potentially dangerous they are. he's been uncanny in predicting what i was going to feel, and coaching me on how to react to it. if you are right, am sad that dean did not have an angel on his shoulder offering wise advice.

 

[tzrider]

if you are right, am sad that dean did not have an angel on his shoulder offering wise advice.

It didn't take long before Potter didn't have any peers, let alone mentors. He was at the pinnacle of his core pursuits and there arguably wasn't anyone who had more experience in those areas. Dean had to be his own angel.

 

[littlebeast]

It didn't take long before Potter didn't have any peers, let alone mentors. He was at the pinnacle of his core pursuits and there arguably wasn't anyone who had more experience in those areas. Dean had to be his own angel.

so does that rate in the category of your sole purpose being a lesson to others? dude is potentially an argument for the dangers of intelligence thwarted by the misplaced confidence in talent.