buy the ticket, take the ride

When I was younger, everyone I knew loved the scary rides at the amusement parks.  The scariest ride was always the roller coaster.  You could hear the sounds of accelerating steel wheels immediately followed by the death screams of scared shitless passengers echoing through every part of the amusement park, beckoning the fearless and fearless wannabe's to come face to face with their own mortality.

You really like this girl and you want to impress her so double dating with another couple at an amusement park sounded like a good idea.  You could ride some rides, hold hands as you walk around, and comment on all the activity.  Play your cards right and you might get laid after the sun sets.

And then, the couple you're with insists you all ride the roller coaster.  If two out of four people want to do a scary ride, and you don't want to look like a wuss to the girl you desperately want to get to second base with, you have no choice but to grow some gonads and get excited over such a great idea.   

When you pay for the ticket and get in line, there's no turning back.  That's what's running through your head as the four of you inch your way in line, surrounded by the overhead roar of an out of control train full of screaming, terrified passengers on a one way trip to hell.

The engine-less train pulls into the platform and you stare at the disheveled occupants and pray that greasy cheeseburger you just ate stays in your stomach.  Your date picks a car and within seconds the bar comes down and you're locked in place, physically over-riding the fight or flight impulse that sets in when you're about to die, and off you go with an accelerated heart rate pumping adrenalin through your blood vessels.  As the coaster makes it's slow, vertical climb, the conversation takes a serious tone as she says, "I'm really scared and excited at the same time.  What about you?"  With your eyes trained at the tracks ahead, disappearing into oblivion, you are too terrified for rational thought.  As you round the top and experience the anti-gravity of a mile high free-fall, your lizard brain takes over and triggers your adrenal glands to go into overload.  All thoughts of getting laid vanish as you hold on with all your might as you see your life pass before your eyes.

The rest of the ride is a series of ups and downs and twists and turns that pales in excitement compared to the horror of the first initial drop, but massive doses of endorphins kick in and your screams of terror morph into yells of elation and extreme joy.  You're alive and this ride is fun as hell and ya can't wait to do it again.
Double payoff as your girl gives you a different ride after the sun sets.

Ok, it's not bungee jumping off The Golden Gate, or skiing down Everest, but it can be a first near death experience, triggering a biochemical cocktail of adrenalin immediately followed by an endorphin rush so profound, that it makes immortality a reality.  The adrenalin wires you tight and sharpens your instinct for survival.  The endorphin rush is the payoff for cheating death and the feeling is equivalent to an opiate high and just as addictive.

Could your first roller coaster ride be the beginning of a life of addictive, chemically rewarded payoffs from taking big chances and cheating death?

I wonder... does the tycoon, base jumper, and hard drug user have the same goals and outcome in common?