Tuesday, August 30, 2011

People are awesome.


Watch this video.

What totally fascinates me about the contents of this video is not necessarily the extraordinary feats that these regular people perform. Regular people do extraordinary things all of the time: surgeons repair people's spines, babies learn to walk, artists create masterpieces out of sound and pigment. Those things are really extraordinary to me.

The reason the people in this video are so incredibly interesting to watch is because the people who populate it are all doing acts which require insane amounts of precision. Of course, there may be one or two of the acts that are random flukes, but for the most part these people clearly practiced these activities over and over and over again until they could reproduce the action at will.

My question to you is this:

What do you think motivates a person to learn how to do something as precise as say, do a backflip off a rubber ball, especially when that act clearly has no practical use, and in many cases could easily cause the person great pain and injury if something went wrong?

Props to Luciano Meneses for showing this to me.

24 comments:

  1. I think the guy running on water might be fake but everything else looks awesome. And to awnser your question they do it to look cool!

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  2. Well... Maybe they want to demostrates people that some thing are not impossible to do and who knows maybe that was one of the goals that they had in their lives and they practiced until they were able to do it. I have to say that this video was just great. There were really awesome tricks that makes me want to do them.... Though i doubt I will ever try, i am too scared... :)

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  3. I think you are write when you say that people do fascinating things. Even the smallest things like learning to walk are very interesting. I think that people take the time to do something as precise as the things in this video, even if they might kill them because they have a strong intellectual curiosity for this kind of things, and they don't care what might happen to them while doing this things.

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  4. Indeed, people are awesome. However, I don't believe it is just those people doing awesome (or insane) things. As you said, people that are considered "normal", like doctors, are awesome too.
    Answering your question, I think that people do that to feel the satisfaction of accomplishing something as wonderful (or crazy) after so much effort.

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  5. I would say that what motivates these people to do all of this stuff even if they might get hurt in the process is that they want to prove themselves. Meaning that they want to show the world that they can do something that other people cannot do. They show the world that people can surpass the human capacities.

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  6. I think they are motivated by desires to challenge themselves. They might feel bliss when they are able to do those actions after a long time of practice. Some of the actions looked so dangerous and made me anxious. However, they are all awesome.

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  7. I think people try to do something that is not tried yet, and when they success what ever that they have done, they feel good about what they have done. It is just a feeling of being the "first one".
    But it would HURT if you fell down when you were doing something like that and you break the spinal cord... I would say that they are AMAZING :) (but I wouldn't dare to do any of those)

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  9. Hey Long Live Hip Hop. Please make sure your language is classroom-appropriate. Feel free to rewrite your post minus the potty-mouth :)

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  10. Oh, I've definitely seen this video before! Yes, it is amazing what a person can do. And the whole trick to it lies behind training one's mind until they are able to accomplish the feat. As to the question you asked: Well, I think it depends on a person's personality. If they want to perfect something, they probably do it to gain recognition. Others might want to master it because they want to amaze someone they care about. Others - like me - probably do it simply to feel that satisfaction that engulfs a person once they accomplish a difficult task.

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  11. It is amazing how people can get to be and it is very interesting what motivates these people to perform pointless performances risking their lives. I believe their motivation his standing out from the rest in society. Their outstanding performances becomes their trademark giving each of them a specific color in this grey society.

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  12. It is really awesome how people try to do things other people can't. Although some parts were dangerous, I think nothing should be impossible if that person tries. Now this days, the world has changed in many ways and people also try to change by doing tremendous things like the video posted here. It is fantastic to see new things but people should be careful before trying it.

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  13. I believe that what motivates these people to do these kind of things is the fact that they want to be able to do something that no one else can to be the best in what they are doing. I think that everyone has had the desire to be outstanding in any field be it physical or intellectual but these persons actually took it a step further and created their own challenges like doing a backflip from a rubber ball and accomplished them.

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  14. Wow, I can't believe these awesome actions people do for entertainment! All these sports or entertainment are really dangerous and someone can get hurt by trying to follow them. It's really amazing, but they should be careful.

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  15. Some of these clips might be fake, but for the ones that are not, props to them. The dedication that you have to put into this to achieve it is beyond what anyone can imagine. I don't think they did it because their crazy, but because of the satisfaction that you get after you do something that very few people can say that they have done.

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  16. I think the people who do this only want "fame" or just want to show their talents. I think it would be dangerous if we did that because we are not as talented as them. It is cool that they have a lot of accuracy and how they do unique tricks without getting injured. How do people do this and how do they do all these hard things in one try?.

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  17. I like the video because I think that it gave people a lot to think about when they saw it, especially the walking on water one.

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  18. The stunts all those people did were awesome! How'd you find this?

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  19. I really like this video because is showing all the stuff that humans can do and also i want to know if they have practice the tricks how much times

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  20. I think that this video is really awesome like the people there, those persons have really good abilities.

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  21. I agree with you Hyun-Eui, pulling off pointless stunts that might kill you or leave you injured severely is what makes these people stand above everyone else in society. After all, do you see a person doing things like this every day?

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  22. Like Amir said, we do not see people doing this everyday and if we did, it would not be interesting to see them later on because we would be so used to it that it would not even call our attention. Seeing all this performances made me feel that there are some really cool and dangerous things in the world that people do and it makes them look cool.

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  23. It really cool what these people do and like Amir and Carlota said people don't do these things everyday, and that is what make these stunts very cool. But I also ask my self how hard do people push themselves to be able to realize these stunts and if we would also be able to push our selfs the same way they do to realize a stunt?

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  24. These are all amazing. Some are not dangerous at all, but nevertheless; AWESOME!!! I get stressed out watching the ones where people go flying through the air, and land perfectly on the ground. How are they so sure that what they are doing is gonna work out??? I could barely look at the one where the man dived from a really tall platform, (2:11) cause I´m soooo scared of heights! People have to have extreme confidence in themselves in order to do those kind of stunts. Three of my personal favorites were 3:09, 3:47, and 3:52. Not the crazy "you could die" ones, maybe cause I don´t wish I could perform those types of stunts, but I have to admit that whoever is able to perform them has skill.

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