There are people who actually live for this.

David Rush is one. As a young nan, he yearned for immortality. 

Some men are born great. Rush struck out there. Some men achieve  greatness. OK, It’s a work in progress.  

In this particular instance,  he thought he had a good chance of greatness being thrust on him.

In point of fact, he took greatness squarely on the chin. The “greatness” came in the  form of a chair.

Rush thought it was a good idea to balance a chair on his chin for over an hour. 

“Why?” asked his nonplussed wife. 

“Why not?” countered the intrepid Rush who was skilled in the cut and thrust of witty repartee. 

Man is the only animal with chins and anthropologists have long wondered why. Apart from being an appendage to stroke knowingly or to scrape hairs from, they appeared to have no other reason for existence. 

Rush may have  provided the science with a breakthrough. Stroking their chins knowingly, its proponents wondered if chins might have evolved to balance chairs upon. 

In this case, The Rush – as he is known in record breaking circles – balanced a chair on his chin for 1 hour and 20 minutes to recapture one of his previously-held titles. 

He certainly leads with his chin. A fortnight previously, the mighty Rush recaptured a similar record by balancing a ladder on said chin for over 19 minutes. 

He takes these record breaking attempts seriously, not unlike   Mohammad Ali training for a fight.  

“Over the past months, I have been training specifically to rebuild strength in my neck,” Rush wrote online. “It is, quite literally, a pain in the neck.”

It’s no joke, which is why only lunatics need apply. According to doctors, this record attempt places constant load on the jaw, neck, and upper spine, and there is no moment of relief once the chair is in position. 

The Rush isn’t your average square-jawed wonder. He is a serial    Guinness World Record-breaker with a plethora of suitably mind-bending, and totally  pointless, feats.  

Now that you have an idea of The Rush’s lunatic persistence, here’s more: he is the listed holder of 350 records in the Guinness Book of Records. 

The Rush strikes a balance between skill, endurance and plain oddity. 

He holds the most axe-juggling catches (2,919); he continuously juggled three balls for over 13 hours, and achieved 380 continuous fist-bumps in 30 seconds. 

He is the fastest in the world to fold and throw a paper plane (5.12 seconds) and has thrown 29 chopsticks at a target in one minute. In between all that, he’s the fastest to encase a person in plastic wrap (1min, 2.44 seconds).

He’s caught 58 marshmallows in his mouth in 1 minute. Meanwhile, he managed to don 20 T-shorts while running a half marathon. 

Perhaps because his records aren’t completely stupid, The Rush makes a good living as a motivational speaker and author.

There are others though whose feats  give you pause. 

Like the guy who broke 40 toilet seats in one minute. 

He used his head though. 

ENDS