The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance

A razor-sharp analysis of how record-breaking exploits in extreme sport are redefining the limits of being human. Right now, more people are risking their lives for their sports then ever before in history. As Thomas Pynchon once put it in Gravity's Rainbow, 'it is not often that Death is told so clearly to f@%* off'. Over the past three decades, the bounds of the possible in action and adventure sports - from sky-diving to motocross to surfing and beyond - have been pushed farther and faster. A generation's worth of iconoclastic misfits have rewritten the rules of the feasible; not just raising the bar, but obliterating it altogether. Along the way, they have become a force pushing evolution relentlessly onward. In a thrilling narrative that draws on biology, psychology, and philosophy, Steven Kotler asks why, at the tail end of the 20th century and the early portion of the 21st, are we seeing such a multi-sport assault on reality? Did we somehow slip through a wormhole to another universe where gravity is optional and common sense obsolete? Drawing on over a decade of research, and first-hand reporting with dozens of top action and adventure sports athletes like big wave legend Laird Hamilton, big mountain snowboarder Jeremy Jones, and skateboarding pioneer Danny Way, New York Times-bestselling author Steven Kotler explores the frontier science of "flow", an optimal state of consciousness in which we perform and feel our best. Building a bridge between the extreme and the mainstream, The Rise of Superman explains how we can radically accelerate performance in our own lives. At its core, this is a book about profound possibility; about what our species is capable of; and about where - if anywhere - our limits lie.