Have you ever been immersed in an endeavor; so completely engaged in one particular activity or area of study that your field of view narrowed to the exclusion of most everything else? For better or worse, historically, I’ve tended toward that approach. The engineering curriculum provided me the opportunity for immersion, absorbing nearly all of my attention span for six years via so many classes in systems theory.
Upon landing that first professional role in the field I found disappointment. There seemed to be no encompassing effort to plug into, no goal to lose myself in. I no longer felt challenged and that nice business card with an important sounding label didn’t seem sufficient to fill the void. The dreaded “downtime” that surreptitiously emerged after five PM, Monday through Friday, and on the weekends weighed heavy on my conscience.
Maybe it was because I felt out of balance from the barrage of technical information I had ingested prior. Maybe it was from a yearning to rediscover that primal side of me that was borne of the woods and open spaces of my youth. Whatever the reason, I chose to fill the void with a fascination in all things wilderness; a fascination that would gradually narrow to an interest in wilderness survival and primitive living skills.
This new-found mission meant not only learning the hard skills necessary to thrive in the wild but also the psychology best suited. In the process, a small library of books and videos was accumulated and for some time practically every spare moment or vacation day (and many a dollar) was allotted to reading up on the subject or attending some wilderness oriented course. That path included such activities as hiking in the Rockies with NOLS, obtaining a wilderness medicine certification, visiting the Tom Brown Jr. Tracking School, and traveling to Peru for primitive skills training of the jungle flavor.
It was during this same period that I received desert-based survival instruction from a colorful gentleman named Cody Lundin. Also known as “Abo-Dude”, Cody’s rugged demeanor is complemented by a subtle, raspy humor that suggests the kind of wisdom one might acquire through hard, shoeless mileage. Early in the course this insight surfaced as he offered navigation tips while adeptly maneuvering down the Cholla-laden trail to a slot canyon where our next classroom waited, a riparian stand of Willow and Cottonwood.
Of his suggestions, one has stuck with me not so much for its usefulness to someone stranded in the desert, but for its general applicability in so many instances since. While we gathered deadfall for fire and shelter later that day, Cody cautioned his group of fledgling Sonoran desert dwellers, “Pace yourself. Sixty percent of maximum is about as hard as you ought to work”.
The idea was that breaking a sweat was a foolhardy thing to do. In that specific environment where ambient temperatures might swing widely and abruptly, one’s chances of experiencing hypothermia increased should the insulating properties of clothing be defeated by moisture. Beyond that, Cody likely understood that an aware, measured, and deliberate tempo of activity was good practice in channeling the impulses of panic and disjointed action likely to rise up in a real emergency.
Cody’s desert survival skills were honed as an instructor at the Boulder Outdoor Survival School (BOSS) in Boulder Utah. And I, the dedicated pupil, felt that following in the teacher’s footsteps would result in the same wisdom. That feeling led me to take a two-week field course with BOSS which was a deep and unexpectedly personal experience. The following year I found myself with a six-week window as I moved to California for school and jumped at the chance to fill it with BOSS staff training among the Navajo Nation and another field course as an apprentice instructor.
During my time with BOSS, I was introduced to the “Rule of Threes”, a sort of application of the physiological base of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. The Rule of Threes provides a rough approximation in measuring the immediacy of stressors so that someone who finds themselves in a life-or-death situation might make decisions based on prioritization and planning instead of impulse. The Rule of Threes goes something like this:
• A person can die in three weeks in the absence of food.
• A person can die in three days in the absence of water.
• A person can die in three hours due to exposure in adverse conditions in the absence of proper shelter or clothing
• A person can die in three minutes in the absence of air.
• A person can die in three seconds in the absence of his or her sanity, that is, in a panic.
Each of the first four above as an approximation might seem plausible and straight-forward given typical limits of the human body. The last one addressing the mind might seem subjective if not questionable when examined. One might ask, “How could a person die from panic in three seconds?” It is this part of the Rule of Threes that is emphasized by BOSS staff. The idea is that a calm but alert mind trumps a state of panic and impulse when making decisions under duress
The anecdote often used to illustrate this idea is of the individual whom upon realizing he or she is lost in the wilderness decides in a state of panic that running full throttle through the woods is the best way out of the situation. Maybe this person feels that time is a factor and therefore a race to find ‘civilization’ is in order. At this frantic pace the person trips on a fallen tree, turns his or her ankle and now, sweaty and limited in ability to secure modest shelter, succumbs to hypothermia. The chilly night air may have sealed the person’s fate, but that fate was enabled by the initial impulse toward panic.
A completely different scenario plays out for the person that stays calm and present and is therefore able to get their bearings in this situation. The person in this case instead chooses the same fallen tree to stop and have a seat on. He or she then decides it’s a good time to take in a calming breath, to clear the mind, and to observe. “Yep, I have air,” the aware person might think. “OK, here I am breathing. So, I ought to be good for at least the next three minutes…” From there planning based on priorities determines the next action. Ample layers of clothing or a bit of foliage for bedding may mean that the person’s needs are taken care of for another three days giving him or her plenty of mental space to decide that perhaps the situation is not that dire and immediate after all.
The take-away point is that healthy possibilities follow from that ability to maintain a relaxed, steady pace in mind and body. By remaining calm and present the individual in the second scenario might even come to appreciate this new-found ‘lost’ status and to see the situation for what it is: another moment in life.
Since learning about Peak Oil nearly five years ago I’ve become more aware of my tendency to immerse myself in the study of whatever grand project is at hand. That method had served me well in previous study but something is different this time. This time the duration of the project is indefinite. In all likelihood the implications of a declining energy supply will be around for a prolonged period of time.
As we change the length of time a person is exposed to the stressors in a survival situation we see a change in the typical response to those stressors. In perilous, but brief circumstances evolution supports us with a strong will to live. But In a longer term environment of stressors the mind’s response might include anxiety, anger, depression, and feelings of isolation, all of which tend to inhibit one’s ability to survive. These responses manifest in a variety of symptoms signaling us that something in our lives is out of balance.
As waypoints indicating the arrival of Peak Oil show up more or less on queue my ability to remain centered in the task has become at times elusive resulting in some of the responses noted above. I occasionally find myself rushing ahead and pushing myself harder to find “solutions” to the various predicted outcomes. Like the individual racing through the woods, sooner or later I trip and fall.
I am terrible at predicting the future. More importantly, I am terrible at living there. For the sake of longevity, perhaps it is better to let go of the notion that every bit of knowledge possibly useful needs to be learned and that every doable deed needs to be done with regard to mitigation of the challenges we face.
Notions of balance and acceptance continue to find room in my consciousness. Maybe there’s value in saving back some personal bandwidth for allotment to this project called life, in stopping to smell the roses a little more often, in loosening my grip a bit or even letting go. What a shame it would be if, in a quest to find that which might be sustainable in a Post-Peak Oil world, I forget to sustain myself.
Links:
NOLS (National Outdoor Leadership School)
http://www.nols.edu/
wilderness medicine certification
http://www.nols.edu/wmi/courses/wildfirstresponder.shtml
Tom Brown Jr.Tracker School
http://www.trackerschool.com/
Cody Lundin
http://www.codylundin.com/
Boulder Outdoor Survival School
http://www.boss-inc.com/
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow’s_hierarchy_of_needs
stress symptoms
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/stress-symptoms/SR00008_D
