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.
The automatic door of the largest garage I’ve ever seen opens as if of its own accord when we pull up to Roger and Crystal’s place. In their airplane hangar of a garage, there’s room for all four of our bikes. We park, unload, find the rooms they’ve set up for us. I’m out cold in minutes.
Dinner is served at six thirty. Hamburger Helper and an iceberg lettuce salad. I’m immensely grateful for their hospitality. Over dinner, Rebecca and I listen to stories Roger and George share about being stuck on the road with fellow bikers, the lengths to which both have gone to help stranded fellow riders. The many nights sitting on the side of the road with a friend’s broken-down bike, keeping each other company. They crack themselves up with tales of a guy named George Sanchez and his unreliable Sportster.
“Why did you keep riding with him if he was always breaking down?” I ask Roger.
“He would have stayed with me, too.”
I ponder this simple algebra of connection.
• • •
Apter tells a story about what he calls “edgeworkers”—those who voluntarily adopt experiences that take them to the “edge” of life. He says that edgeworkers recognize one another, despite great differences in lifestyle and social location. He cites gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, progenitor of the term edgework, to explain how Thompson won the confidence of the Hells Angels when researching his first book:
I just went out there and said, “Look, you guys don’t know me, I don’t know you, I heard some bad things about you, are they true?” I was wearing a fucking madras coat and wing tips, that kind of thing, but I think they sensed I was a little strange . . . Crazies always recognize each other. I think Melville said it, in a slightly different context: “Genius all over the world stands hand in hand, and one shock of recognition runs the whole circle round.” Of course, we’re not talking about genius here, we’re talking about crazies—but it’s essentially the same thing. They knew me, they saw right through all my clothes and there was that instant karmic flash. They seemed to sense what they had on their hands.
Those who are interested in pushing boundaries, even when they are scared to do so, may be in some kind of psychic communion with others of their tribe. It provides a form of community that may be lacking in much of modern life.
• • •
“So,” Roger turns to me. “What kind of work do you do?” In this group, I’m the odd one out, definitely not part of the tribe. Everyone, other than Rebecca, who owns Glendale Harley, earns a living with their hands. Rebecca is accepted despite her outsider status by the beloved nature of her business.
“I write books and I’m a college professor,” I say. Roger asks more questions, and when my background as a former book critic comes up, he pauses.
“That would mean you’ve read something like a hundred books in your life!” he exclaims, unable to believe that such a thing is possible. “I’ve never read a book all the way through,” he confides.
Roger and Crystal have embraced different risks from the ones I have chosen. The same goes for George, Edna, and Rebecca. But as motorcyclists, we’re all the same. We find ways to feed this need, not only because we’re biologically compelled to, but also because it’s actually good for us.
Cutting-edge neuroscience demonstrates that novel experience can improve our mental and physical health well into old age, Gallagher reports. Which makes total sense. When we do something new, learn something we didn’t know before, we create new neural pathways, develop new skills. We come alive in a new way and develop neuroplasticity. “Research now shows that adults of all ages who want to maintain sound minds as well as sound bodies should rise from their ruts and exercise both,” she writes.
Each time we cultivate our neophilia by trying something different, we make it easier to take the next step away from dull routine. We all seek novelty in our own ways. The one thing that seems clear, though, is that it’s healthy and life expanding to embrace novelty.
Researchers who investigate quality of life find that the skillful exploitation of the novelty effect can help us wrest more enjoyment and productivity from daily experience. Economist Tibor Scitovsky studied the relationship between happiness and consumerism. He argued that buying lots of inexpensive “pleasures”—fresh flowers, a piece of dark chocolate, a special meal—evoke deep appreciation and are intensely satisfying. These things are a far better investment in one’s quality of life than spending on “comforts”—serious, expensive things like a deluxe car or an expensive couch. He also supported the idea that we enjoy a pleasurable event even more when we take a short break in its midst. A few moments of pillow talk during sex or a pause during a massage enhances the experience. This is because that time-out interrupts the adaptation process, so we can re-enter and re-appreciate the initial arousal of the activity’s delights.
And it’s arousal rather than adaptation that is often what pulls us into pleasurable activities. Someone who’s terrified to hike alone or to speak in public will not adapt to that fear and will make a conscious effort to avoid it.
On the other hand—Gallagher uses the example of a hoarder—another person may stay aroused by utterly boring objects: old mail, newspapers, bottle caps, pencil stubs, and respond to them as if they were novel, not dismissing them as others would. “Then, too, some of us adapt to stimulating things that, being dangerous, should have remained highly arousing.”
It’s this precarious balance between what’s new and exciting and what feels okay to do that equals a healthy degree of sensation seeking.
Gallagher’s words about her own quest for novelty come to mind as I fall asleep. “Novelty-seeking is the spice of my life. I live in different places, both of which are extreme—NYC and remote Wyo
ming—because I get bored easily. For me, novelty seeking is more a matter of openness to experience than extreme risk taking. I love the research and reporting involved in producing a book, because I get to learn new things and think new thoughts every day. Then, I get to create something new out of it all!”
•CHAPTER NINE•
MATCHY-MATCHY
I’ve been absolutely terrified every moment of my life and I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single thing that I wanted to do.
—GEORGIA O’KEEFFE
Day Two: Saturday, August 24
Cedar City, Utah, to Jackson, Wyoming: 521 miles
The phone alarm chimes in the blackness of early, early morning. I have slept deliciously hard. I inch my way off the limp air mattress partially deflated during the night and try to stand. My back hurts, my hamstrings yowl, and my ears still ring from the roar of my pipes. I make a note to bring earplugs on my next road trip. The idea that Rebecca and I could chat via Bluetooth or that I could listen to music while riding is a joke. I may have to ditch those doggone pipes after all.
In the rooms nearby, I hear the others gathering themselves. I struggle with my T-bag. To get anything out of it, I pretty much have to dump the contents and then shove it all back in. So much for my pretrip obsessive organizational system. I select clothes for the day: Armored pants. A fresh T-shirt and socks. I wedge my feet back into the motorcycle boots. I can’t believe we’re going to do this again. I put two ibuprofen in my tank bag for later.
As I dress, I notice the guest room decorated in a pale blue country theme. A rocking chair perches in the corner, a cross-stitch sampler hangs on the wall. Depictions of fairies are everywhere—paintings, figurines, and a particularly large sculpted wood sprite holding a translucent bubble the size of a cantaloupe. The room is harmonized and color-coordinated and sweet. Safe.
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