Of Passion, Risk and Choice

In 1900, three years before he and his brother Orville invented the first controllable, powered airplane, Wilbur Wright wrote to a friend: “I have been afflicted with the belief that flight is possible to man. My disease has increased in severity and I feel that it will soon cost me an increased amount of money, if not my life.”

It’s an interesting description of passion—as a disease that exerts such an inescapable pull on those it visits that they are powerless to turn away from where it leads them. It’s also a description I’ve been thinking about particularly this week, as astronaut Mark Kelly, the husband of wounded U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, climbs aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavor and heads back into space for the 5th time, and Neal Beidleman, a guide for Scott Fischer who survived the 1996 Mt. Everest disaster, heads back to Everest for another attempt at the mountain.

Every person has their own personal risk thermostat, a fact that appears to have biological roots as well as, perhaps, psychological ones. As I’ve written before here, people who have lower-than-normal levels of an enzyme called monoamine oxidase B (MAO B) seem to feel less fear and crave adrenaline-producing thrills more than the rest of us.

For example, Sport Aviation (my new home for my “Flying Lessons” column), recently  ran a cover story on Swiss jet-wing pilot Yves Rossey, who (as a quick click on the link will show) flies a self-designed jet-powered wing he straps on his back.

Rossy became world-known when he perfected the wing enough to fly it across the English Channel in 2008. But there were numerous less-successful iterations before he came up with even the current delta-wing design, and the risk level is still high enough that he has to jettison the wing on about one out of every 10 flights.

Clearly, a man who not only sky surfs, but sky surfs on the back of a model Mirage fighter plane, and then goes on to design and test fly a “Rocketeer”-type contraption for fun, not only has a real passion for flight, but also has a higher risk tolerance, or thermostat setting, than most of us.

But it’s one thing to take on risk in pursuit of a passion when: a) you’re the only one bearing the risk or consequences and b) you have the luxury of still believing in happy endings. What intrigues me about Kelly and Beidleman is that they both, for different reasons, don’t have those luxuries. Yet they’ve both decided to return to places that carry great risk in the face of circumstances that might give other people pause.

Neal Beidleman didn’t just witness the 1996 Everest disaster that Jon Krakauer immortalized in his book Into Thin Air from the relative safety of base camp. He was up on the mountain with the others who died, huddling in high winds and minus 100-degree temperatures through a dark night, only barely managing to steer a few clients back to the safety of their high camp once the storm abated. Beidleman survived, but Fischer and seven others died.

What makes a man return to the mountain that came so close to killing him, and which took the lives of so many of his colleagues on a single, nightmare day? In an interview he gave recently to the New York Times, Beidleman says the experience taught him many valuable lessons that he believes now make him a safer, better climber. And, indeed, when he and world-famous climber Ed Viesturs made an attempt on Annapurna (a 26,545-foot mountain peak in the Himalayas) in 2000, they decided the conditions were too treacherous and called off the attempt.

From what I’ve read, it seems Beidleman is motivated by a combination of passion for mountain climbing and a desire to somehow “redo” that terrible day; to have a summit climb turn out the way he had hoped the 1996 expedition would–with everyone intact and able to celebrate a challenging but rewarding and successful experience. Fair enough, although he’s going back to Everest as a co-guide for a paying client, after having said he didn’t want to do that again, after the Everest disaster, because it increased the risk factors you couldn’t control. So I still wonder about that piece. For it will surely put additional ghosts, and pressures, on Beidleman’s attempt.

Of course, some of Beidleman’s family are less than thrilled at his going back to the mountain. Not surprising, given how close he came to dying on his last attempt. Beidleman says his 83-year-old mother let him know “in no uncertain terms” how she felt about it. He says his wife is more supportive, perhaps because he was already a mountain climber when she met him. But Beidleman’s wife is at least in sound health, and therefore more able to go on solo if something were to happen to him.

In many ways, Mark Kelly’s dilemma has a similar pro/con balance as Beidleman’s, but in reverse. Kelly has had four successful Shuttle flights into space, so it’s undoubtedly easier for him to focus on the prospect of a successful 5th flight, despite the fact that flying in the Space Shuttle is far more dangerous than climbing Everest.

Three Shuttle commanders I’ve interviewed all concurred that it’s the single more dangerous thing a human can undertake on planet Earth, even if few astronauts really acknowledge the full force of the risks involved. Part of that risk comes from the fact that, unlike Yves Rossy, who can jettison his wing and descend by parachute or reserve parachute if something goes wrong, or Beidleman, who can decide partway up the mountain, as he did on Annapurna, that things aren’t going well and call the attempt off … Shuttle astronauts, once that fuse is lit, are committed. And they’re committed to an initial eight minutes of flight during which there are some 800 critical failures possible, any one of which will cause their death, and all of which are beyond their control.

This is what astronauts do, of course, so the mere fact that they take on those risks isn’t surprising. People who feel a passion for something, whether it’s protesting a repressive government, helping starving children in African war zones, climbing mountains, or flying in space, often take on risks in order to pursue those passions. And there is often a cost, or risk, to their families, as well, if only in time and focus away from home. The reason we don’t all decry anyone who pursues a passion is that we all “get,” on some level, the delicate and tricky balance between what we all owe ourselves, and what we owe to those around us.  There is also, arguably, a significant upside for those close to a passionate person, because passionate individuals generally have a wonderful zest for life and new possibilities that is infectious and inspiring. Passionate people do not spend their lives complaining, waiting around for retirement, or sitting around drinking beer and watching TV.

But, still. What intrigues me about Kelly’s choice to return to space a 5th time is that he made it in spite of his wife’s taking a bullet through the brain three months before his scheduled launch date. Sure, she’s making progress, but I’ve dealt with two family members who’ve sustained brain damage, and I can tell you that the road back—even in the best of circumstances—is long, slow, and indescribably more difficult without a close caregiver and supporter in the mix. All is fine if he makes it into space and back intact. But there’s no guarantee of that. Far from it. Astronaut Dick Scobee, the commander of the ill-fated Challenger Space Shuttle, told his crew that they needed to regard their flight as a one-way ticket, with an outside chance of safe return.

I know everyone is focusing on Kelly’s launch as a great victory over the attempted assassin, of reclaiming “normalcy” in his and his wife’s lives. What’s more, every marriage is different, and largely unknowable to outsiders. Kelly and Giffords were an unusually independent couple, even before the tragedy. They didn’t even live in the same state, let alone the same household. But I find it interesting that Kelly’s passion for space flight—something he’d admitted to reporters, before his wife’s shooting, that he was having a very hard time giving up—exerts such a strong pull on him that he chose to pursue a 5th attempt at it, despite his drastically changed personal circumstances.

What all this says to me is that Orville Wright saw quite clearly the power, and the pull, of passion when he said he “feared it would cost him”—as if regardless of the risks, he knew he would be unable, or unwilling, to walk away. For all we may rationalize away or calculate the risk, or focus on a vision of success … the bottom line is, still, that somewhere in the midnight of their souls, both Mark Kelly and Neal Beidleman know that all might not go well. And yet, they are returning to the place of their passion anyway, despite the risks, the ghosts, or the consequences if they should fail.

Such is the power of passion. And why, despite its costs to self or others, it has the power to change the world.