Subaquatic Salutations
ISSUE 25 [585g Per Serving]
The Wanderer Returns
And just like that, I’m back.
I won’t bang on about it too much. Mostly because I’m conscious that not everyone has recently had the chance to swan around South-East Asia contemplating life and drinking iced coffees in suspiciously idyllic locations.
Still, I’m sure you won’t begrudge me the trip.
Turns out there are some silver linings to being unceremoniously ousted from your ‘permie’ job (thanks to Matthew Knight for that particular bit of terminology).
And thanks to all those who told me to go away. You were right.
Cliched as it sounds, it was humbling to traverse the globe with only a few bits and bobs on my back again.
And while I may have lamented the pre-iPhone era of globetrotting in the last issue, there were still a few instances where the ol’ dog and bone couldn’t provide its usual reassurance.
Moments in the north Vietnamese mountains, signal non-existent, where conversations with local farmers conducted almost entirely through sign language and vague gesticulation were all that separated me from an accidental (and almost certainly illegal) border crossing into China.
Or 12 metres underwater, somewhere off the southern tip of a small Philippine island, where my phone was about as useful as it would be to the thoroughly unimpressed grouper watching me try, and fail, to become a fish.
Try Not To Breathe
Freediving itself is no joke.
The combination of prolonged breath hold and slow, crushing ambient pressure does strange things to the body. But with proper training and technique, you can go to depths scuba divers can only dream of.
Unsurprisingly, the trick is resisting the urge to breathe.
Most people assume the feeling comes from needing oxygen. But it’s really the body trying to release CO2. Training to stay under is about increasing your tolerance to the build-up of CO2 in your blood. The more you can handle, the less quickly you need to surface.
Like many sporting pursuits, freediving is an exercise in how much discomfort you’re willing to take. And managing that discomfort is as much mental as anything else.
Redundancy Run Club
I really do try to avoid these laboured analogies, I promise. No one wants to become one of those LinkedIn “here’s what my daughter’s school sports day taught me about e-commerce” types. Least of all me.
But sometimes they’re just staring me in the face. Begging me to take them for a walk.
So walk we shall, friends…
I can’t help but think I’ve spent years building my career equivalent of CO2 tolerance. Tolerance to uncertainty, insecurity, and the creeping sense of precarity surrounding so much of what it means to exist in this industry — and increasingly, modern work in general.
Redundancy wasn’t the news I wanted, but when it came, part of me was relieved.
Because for the first time in a very long time, I took a breath. A big, gasping, CO2-purging breath. And the release was palpable.
That’s why I’m launching Redundancy Run Club.
I’m hoping it can be somewhere people — from permies (thanks again, Matthew) to those affected by redundancy, and everyone in between — can exhale a little.
At the very least, it’ll be a space that recognises how many of us are fighting the urge to breathe, even if we don’t quite know it.
If you want to support, you can follow along here.
And if you fancy a chinwag about the beguiling nature of underwater pastimes, hit me up.
It’s not like I’ve got a job or anything, after all.