Not Drowning While Being Submerged
I forget which famous -ologist said that the only difference between drowning and swimming is how you move your body. (Update it was Sam Harris)
It led me to contemplate on the difference between a life of misery or that of utter bliss, which I believe to be just as subtle. The more we resist and squirm about, the more energy we expend, the less stamina we have, the quicker we drown. Similarly, the more we overwhelm our brains with bad news and crime scene investigation sitcoms, the quicker our mind devolves into paranoia. Or whatever the case may be.
If we are going to reduce this phenomenon into a single point of origin, it all has to do with where we apply our focus. A scarcity mindset is what causes us to believe we don’t have enough oxygen, when the reality of the situation is that we actually do.
You’ll have likely heard the once little known fact that it is actually an accumulation of carbon dioxide that causes us to gasp underwater and drown, and not a lack of oxygen. To say that in another way, our entire existence can be deleted because our brain was too impatient to wait, so it paniced. Free-divers train themselves to not have such a dramatic response to a pause in breathing. Some monks (I’ve heard) can go for such a long period without taking a breath, I don’t even care to quote the length of that time because it seems like something one would have to see to believe.
Instead of not having enough oxygen, though, we’ve convinced ourself we don’t have enough time on this Earth. That is because time is the currency that we exchange. We turned time into a commodity and have placed a great deal of value on it. But the truth is, we have to find beauty in even the worst experiences.
Our little thinker is powerful in this way. It seems to me this is in part to do with the persistant idea that pain is a necessary evil. Something we’ll always have to look in the eyes and face head on. A fact of life, we’ll inevitably have to deal with, and while that is true, it is a cynical take on the beauty of existence. We have to find serenity in the panic. We’ve always just needed to surrender to what already would be.
That frame shift is so slight in practice, we are still left to wonder if there is any difference at all. Just like the comparison of treading water and flailing for dear life, moving in concert with the moment is like swimming in a sea of possibilities. The real trick is remembering to remain calm, breathe, know your limits, and always keep in mind you can float for a while if you get tired.
