Harley and Me (12 page)

So what's the difference between novelty seeking and risk taking? Gallagher believes risk taking is a specific form of novelty seeking in which the novelty you seek is an intensely exciting, arousing experience. One's reaction to a roller coaster is a good gauge of that person's degree of risk taking. Do you say:
Get me out of here?
or
I'll try it once?
or
Let's do it again?

Initially I'm stumped because I'm not a big fan of roller coasters or anything that combines the pull of gravity with perilous drops. So how and why do I find myself in this category?

• • •

We take off from Pasadena into the darkest, coolest part of the night. We've downed a fair amount of coffee but I'm already exhausted for lack of sleep. I've been packing for days, agonizing over what to bring, discarding what wouldn't fit in the compact bag, making last-minute purchases like heavy gloves for when we hit the Rockies and Yellowstone, panicking about what I have forgotten. Cold-weather clothes fill most of my bag: leather jacket, down vest,
long underwear, ear and neck warmers, a rain suit. I may need these items only one day of this trip, but I'll be grateful to have them if the weather turns harsh.

The first hour on the ride is uneventful. The sun is not even tickling the horizon yet and the morning is cool, but I'm warm. And relaxed. And soon very, very sleepy. Motion is supposedly a reliable hypnotic for a restless toddler but I never sleep on planes or in a car. Still, I cannot keep my eyes open. The thrum of the road with the drone of my pipes creates a kind of white noise that lulls me toward Mr. Sandman. I shake my head and try to perk up. I don't think I'm in any danger, but I keep waiting for the fog in my head to clear. I drift into the fast lane. I sit up straighter and force myself to pay attention. But then, I'm ahead of Edna and fast approaching George's rear fender. How did that happen? I ease into my place in the formation, but George drops back to gesture if I'm okay. I nod that I'm fine. Falling asleep easily is not part of my nature.

Thankfully, he's been around tired bikers enough to know the signs. He signals for us all to pull to the shoulder.

“You need to walk around, have something to eat,” he tells me.

I'm embarrassed. I hate to be the one responsible for everyone having to stop. I am most secure when I serve as a knowledgeable, astute member of the team. I hate feeling like the weak link. After some food and a brisk walk, though, I am alert again and grudgingly grateful he made the call. I would have risked my safety not to draw attention to myself. What a ridiculous, humbling thing to admit.

After the fifteen-minute break, we're back on the bikes. The sun is starting to warm in the east, the darkness seems less inky. I'm finally out of danger. But I also acknowledge that my need for perfectionism and self-sufficiency is going to kill me if I'm not more careful.

• • •

I learn that people who share similar sensation-seeking drives tend to be more romantically compatible with each other, and that divorced
males score higher than single and married males. Divorced and single females score higher than married females.

The term
neophobe
applies to individuals on the opposite end of the spectrum—those who exhibit a strong desire for safety and predictability. Neophiliacs and neophobes together account for 15 to 30 percent of all people overall, approximately 10 to 15 percent on each end of the continuum. “The remaining 70 to 80 percent are moderate neophiles of different degrees,” explains Gallagher. This refers to people who “want to be neither scared stiff by too much novelty and change nor bored stiff by too little.”

Though there are different lenses through which to examine a person's drive for novelty, a lot of the experts tend to agree on the basics: While risky behavior can be detrimental to the individual (and, it must be noted, behavior that is too cautious may likewise be detrimental), both traits can be beneficial to society at large. “Whatever the costs for a particular person, particularly at the continuum's high and low ends, the roughly 1-5-1 proportion of those who generally approach, weigh, or avoid new things is good for the commonweal,” according to Gallagher. Bold adventure seekers may live too fast and die too young. But they also explore, experiment, and otherwise push the envelope for the rest of us in productive ways, she says. “Like individuals, societies struggle to balance the need to survive, while prioritizing safety and stability, with the desire to thrive, which requires stimulation and exploration.”

• • •

“Well, hello there!” the Australian motorcycle couple enfolds Rebecca and me in hugs as if we're long-lost family rather than friends of friends they've just met. They've been coming to California for decades, renting motorcycles and often touring with George and Edna. We're standing in the casino parking lot in Primm, amazed at how hot the day is already at 10:00 am.

“Let's get some food!” they say in unison.

We settle for an IHOP located inside the stale-smoke casino. There isn't a bathroom inside the restaurant—the casino wants you to wander past as many slot machines as possible to find it. I locate the bathroom, wash my face, apply sunblock to the little patches of skin that are exposed. In my snug motorcycle gear, I walk back through the casino. Some of the men eye me: with awe, appreciation, intimidation? They take more notice than I'm used to. The women, on the other hand, seem to make an effort
not
to notice me.

If I were dressed as my everyday self, I wouldn't get these looks. Or maybe that's not true. During the course of my marriage, I learned to turn off the sexual-awareness meter that we all developed in puberty. From age twenty-three on, I stopped noticing men. They were off-limits. And since I was in the “off” position, they stopped noticing me, too.

Or so I thought.

Earlier, Rebecca said she caught glimpses of the faces of truckers who passed us on the highway. “They really perk up when they see Edna's bike. Then they almost do a double take at the two female bikers following her.”

I hadn't noticed. In fact, I thought of myself as rather androgynous when I was on the bike.

• • •

Gender, as it turns out, has a lot to do with the concept of novelty seeking. For both sexes, novelty seeking peaks in adolescence and declines with age—“even Keith Richards has slowed down,” Gallagher notes. That said, lots of research shows that deliberately engaging with new challenges, even things as simple as trying a different restaurant or gym routine or taking a community college course, is a great way to improve your well-being and protect your mental and physical health. “So, ladies of a certain age,” Gallagher proposes, “why not learn to fly-fish or ride a motorcycle? If not now, when?”

The major difference between the genders in this realm is that women are more sociable, and men have higher levels of testosterone
and lower levels of monoamine oxidase A, two brain chemicals associated with risk taking. This could help explain why more men than women are interested in extreme sports and the Special Forces. That doesn't mean women wouldn't be interested in such exploits, however. Just note the number of female astronauts, West Pointers, and mountain-climbers. “I suspect women motorcycle riders would be in there somewhere too,” Gallagher notes.

The more intellectual, emotional form of novelty seeking, openness to experience, refers to one's degree of curiosity, imagination, creativity, insight, and preference for variety. “Some studies show that many women who score high in novelty seeking manifest the tendency in unconventional lifestyles or hobbies, globe-trotting,” she says.

Biological as well as cultural influences can incline some populations to be more enthusiastic about new experiences than others. While the frequency of a gene linked to novelty seeking varies greatly around the globe, among Westerners of European decent, its prevalence comes in at a substantial 25 percent. By contrast, it's rarely found in culturally conservative China.

It seems our ancestors' novelty seeking was boosted by the modern nervous system's sophisticated circuitry for the regulation of dopamine, one of the brain's major chemical messengers that referees our emotional responses to the world. Dopamine is critical in the seeking and processing of novelty and rewards. But how we process that neurotransmitter can vary from person to person. An individual's dopaminergic makeup can help explain why one person is eager to explore new things while someone else might see only the risky downside involved.

• • •

We enter Las Vegas just past noon when the city's mien is at its most brutal and unflattering. This gambling and sex spectacle in the middle of the parched wasteland has never appealed to me. I prefer
to feel centered and grounded, but Vegas is obviously designed to distract and dazzle. Gratefully, the plan is to roll on through.

But then a construction zone chokes four lanes down to two, and George pulls to the side and comes to a stop. There's barely a sliver of shoulder. Rebecca and I pull up behind with traffic passing only an arm's distance away. Edna has to get off at the next exit to make her way back to us. George's engine has quit. We edge up snug to the K-rail erected to provide a safety barrier for the construction workers.

As George starts pulling out tools, my heart sinks, worried this experience is going to be like everything else. As a kid, it seemed there was always something that interfered with my plans. Birthday parties canceled when my mother was sent off to Camarillo State Mental Hospital again, outings aborted when my younger brother ran away or was arrested. When I was accepted into graduate school, I waited until the very last second to prepare. I was certain something would come along to destroy my chance to have that experience. I seem to have spent my life waiting for the one thing that was going to torpedo whatever hopes I'd tentatively begun to imagine into existence. When one's dreams are forever being thwarted, you learn to deny them, or at the minimum, not take them seriously.

I am trying hard not to throw in the towel when we've hardly even crossed the state line. But the words keep running through my head:
Who do you think you are, that you should deserve this?

With the highway traffic flying by and gusting us with wind and road debris, George tinkers. I try not to panic. Within fifteen minutes, the problem is fixed.

• • •

There's another aspect, too, to this kind of risky behavior that feeds our need for sensation. Though we are biologically programmed to seek out what's novel, modern life seldom gives us reasons to truly put our lives on the line. As a result, humans take what are, in most
modern cases, unnecessary risks because the craving for adventure still runs strong in our genetic makeup. As a society, we laud our risk takers, showering praise and adulation on them. Race car drivers, astronauts, mountaineers, and explorers are seen as heroes (and heroines) to many in our culture. This positive social reinforcement is a powerful force, basically guaranteeing that that genetic disposition will be passed along.

Some social scientists speculate that novelty seeking may be the result of having more leisure time than our ancestors. Free time, together with brains wired for risk and a social milieu that feeds off novelty, makes a powerful concoction.

In fact, it's one of the reasons people love horror films so much. People who would never engage in high-risk activities themselves often take vicarious excitement from movies. Nothing is going to jump off the screen and get us, so we can fill that need for a little burst of fear, a moment of panic, a release of dopamine and adrenaline, all safely contained within a benign environment, thereby allowing us to get the “fix” our biology craves.

Michael Apter, research psychologist and author of
The Dangerous Edge: The Psychology of Excitement
, describes the appeal of risk taking as the “the tiger in the cage” phenomenon. Risk seekers desire the danger and thrill of the tiger, but they also want the safety of knowing the beast can be contained.

In fact, many people who love to take risks are characterized by a consuming desire to control their own destiny. Though others imagine they have a latent death wish, the truth is that they are actually passionate devotees of living life to its fullest. By taking part in activities in which they could be injured or killed, and then drawing back from the brink through their application of skill and discipline, they tap into a level of awareness and alert presence that can make life seem that much sweeter. Risk takers are not interested in dangerous activities, per se, but in experiencing danger that they can control and master to the utmost degree.

Is it ironic that scientists find risk seekers to have a strong need for control in most or all areas of their lives? In fact, some experts suggest that taking risks may bring periods of welcome abandon to individuals who have trouble letting life simply unfold.

People, perhaps, somewhat like me.

• • •

We cross the short pie wedge of Nevada and enter Utah. My arms ache, my back is sore from holding my shoulders upright. My legs knot from being held in a static position. This is the longest day riding I've ever experienced. We approach Cedar City when George pulls off the highway.

“We just passed a sign for Zion National Park,” he says. He's going to call Roger, who will be hosting us tonight and who ostensibly knows this area better than we do, to see if we have time to explore it.

Zion is one of my favorite places on the planet. A magical space composed of towering sandstone cliffs in red, beige, and peach, it's a slot canyon with a distinctive Narrows, a gorge with walls more than a thousand feet tall cut through by the slender Virgin River. One must wade or swim to fully hike the terrain. But right now, I just want to stop and rest. It's only midafternoon and I'm shot. I could kill for a bed. Or even a floor, any horizontal surface. I'm relieved when George finds out that we can't actually ride our motorcycles into Zion. Everyone, cars and motorcycles alike, must park outside and take a shuttle. He's still ready to go to Zion, but Rebecca and I—the tired ones—talk him out of it.