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This notion of limits and edge reminds me of Hunter Thompson's musings on "The Line" in his piece about the Hell's Angels. He argues (wildly paraphrasing) that the fundamental draw (and in some sense, the art) of motorcycles or extreme sports is in finding that edge or limit. The problem he identifies being that you cannot really know where it is without going over it, with all the consequences.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell%27s_Angels:_The_Strange_a...

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I think he returns to the theme in "The Song of the Sausage Creature."

Myself, I can barely ride a simple bicycle more than about two hundred feet without somehow dislodging myself in a manner with roughly equal parts comedy and tragedy, but the way he wrote that and described the attraction of an edge where on one side laid a perfect moment-to-moment mastery of all of the physics in racing and the appeal of having absolutely nothing else matter at the moment because you simply haven't the space in your brain to do anything else ... and the other side, which involves multiple surgeries, rehab, and long phone calls with insurance companies, it was very appealing. "One of my finest addictions" indeed.

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