Skywalkers

I don’t usually delve too deeply into internet trends.  Funny pictures of cats, e-cards and memes—these things are good for a chuckle or a distraction when I’m suffering from writer's block.  But these pictures caught and held my attention.  It’s pretty hard not to be caught by it, to be honest.  I found myself searching for the safety equipment, for any sign of photoshopping, but found nada.  These are real, flesh-and-blood people who are hanging off of skyscrapers.

What kind of a trend is this?  Because I’ve done my research, and apparently it is a trend.  ABC News did a segment on it, which proves I’m not imagining things.  The trend began in Russia, where “skywalkers” like Vitaly Raskalov and Marat Dupri have made names for themselves climbing impossibly tall structures without safety gear of any kind.  At the top, they take pictures of the views and of themselves—naturally, right?  No one would believe them, otherwise.  Now if it were just these few people doing it, I would be impressed.  I would question their sanity a little, but I would be impressed. 

But there are hundreds of people doing this.  There are pictures of skywalkers and “roofers” all across the internet, each more daring that the last.  People doing handstands on exposed beams, people dangling from suspension bridges, all in their twenties or younger.  I look at all of this in blank astonishment, and my question is: why?  Who would want to do this?  What in this trend would be worth risking their lives?  It is so, so dangerous.  Check out the video above, if you haven’t already—it says plainly that one young man has died from this hobby.  His friend Marat, also a skywalker, says this tragedy stopped him from doing “something very risky.”  He still climbs, though, and to me, that's pretty damn risky.

I’m trying to restrain the immediate, mom-like impulse, which is utter horror.  I don’t want to be a stick in the mud, by any means.  In theory, I can come up with a few reasons people may want to do this, and most don't balance the risk, in my opinion.  If they do it for fame, then I pity them the lack of wisdom that counts the regard of others over their own self-regard.  If they do it for the thrill, then I pity them that they can’t find happiness in smaller things.  But if they do it for art—to capture the beauty and the danger of such a moment, to put their lives on the line to find something that no other human being can—well.  That I can admire, and even be grateful for.

I still am afraid for these people, and I regret the years they might lose, the years they don’t value enough to protect.  But after all, what makes humans amazing is their vast differences from one another.  Some will never take their eyes off the ground, not once in their entire lives.  Some will wish for the stars, but never do more that hope.  And some—some will steal stairways to heaven, will offer up their safety and sanity for a chance to taste it.  That vast spectrum between the former and the latter is what makes humanity all that it is.