Extremes and Excellence

An essay by Dr. Lloyd Sederer

The Empire State Building

Renoir

One person is climbing the Empire State or Chrysler Building in New York City with no harness or net. Another ascends Everest without oxygen. Yet another is driving solo across 1,000 miles of fierce Serengeti desert, or daring to fly a single engine plane solo across the Atlantic. Yet another pickle, if you will, is eating 80 frankfurters (and buns) in 10 minutes (or less).

Not infrequently we hear about men and women making news for inimitable, even unimaginable, extremes – some lionhearted, some foolhardy. These can pique our mind; we wonder how those doing the former summon the courage to place their lives at risk of death. They know superlative training, foremost equipment, and finely honed strategic planning far from assures them safe passage out of the jaws of their potentially mortal passage.

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In 1974, Ernest Becker, a PhD anthropologist and itinerant professor at more than a few universities, published The Denial of Death. His book shortly thereafter won the Pulitzer Prize; ironically, Becker died two months after its publication.

Becker’s sweepingly posited a theory that our fear of death is primary to the remarkable human interest and capacity for behaviors that risk a mortal outcome. His theoretical stance entertained the view that heroism achieved by extreme behaviors is but another example of how anxiety attendant to the denial of death explains heroism, including that with the greatest of mortal risks. Heroism, he asserted, can serve as a psychoanalytic defense against our a common anxiety about dying. After all, we know there are no exceptions to dying. This realization may also be causal in the widely held beliefs and convictions meant to mitigate knowing we will die, including reincarnation, “future lives”, and the permanence of the universe.

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I was a Resident in Psychiatry at the Department of Psychiatry of the State University of New York (SUNY Upstate) at the time of Becker’s book.  He found good company at SUNY Upstate in Thomas Szasz, MD. Szasz was a professor there; I had the good fortune to know and learn from him, famed for his seminal work, The Myth of Mental Illness, and a bounty of other books repetitively critiquing American psychiatry.

The Myth bravely ran roughshod over our cultural view of mental conditions as illnesses. As a psychoanalyst himself, Szasz also gave little mind to the dominant Freudian psychoanalytic theories of his time, including Freud’s notion of Thanatos, the death drive that he asserted was in us all.

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Returning to the present, in 2026, when asked, ”why?”, of the Russian couple who had bested the Empire State Building without a harness, they tossed out love as their explanation. Perhaps love led to their adventure but could not have been much comfort after they were arrested and placed into separate NYC jail cells.

The “why” question also invites us to consider if the excesses performed in denying death may also be the result of the pride (vanity?) achieved from extreme behavior. A fine frosting on the cake of their bravery.

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Surely extreme pursuits have more purpose than the denial of death. Social science has given us the term “secondary gain”, commonly used when reporting on self-serving behaviors. There is money to be made (from prosperous sponsors) and recognition, if not fame, for succeeding in extreme achievements, including but not limited to being a “dare devil”. Climbing unharnessed up a 1400+ foot tower will likely be worth your while in any number of ways, if you survive or don’t end up in prison.

Extreme achievements, in science, the humanities, non-extreme sports, and the arts with no mortal risk have drawn precocious and brilliant performers. But we usually describe their efforts as indicia of “excellence”, not being extreme. Credit where due.

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As a note, often too little attention is paid to the time and patience, smarts, discipline and grit, creativity, great support, and a touch of good luck that are essential to excelling in (and delivering extremes) in about all endeavors. Achievement, as it turns out, is also almost always a team sport.

And “{that’s} no humbug” (1).

(1)     Haridas RP. “Gentlemen! This is no humbug”, John Collins Warren, M.D, October 16, 1846, at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Anesthesiology 2016;124:553-60 (exclaimed  by a surgeon when ether was proven to prevent pain during surgery).

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Lloyd I Sederer MD is a psychiatrist, public health doctor, and non-fiction writer.

Three of his books (#14), photos from my website, www.askdrlloyd.com