Survival Skills

I was in the next train to the one that blew up at Edgware Road in London on July 7th, a few years back. I remember that for the first time in my life I understood the meaning of "paralised by fear". I literally couldn't move for 2 minutes. All that happened in my head during those two minutes was the never-ending, looping thought that I could be dead in the next few seconds. I can remember this feeling to this day, the fear gripping at the back of my neck.

The moment where I started to move again was when I saw some people trying to pry the doors open (the carriage was filled with smoke). Somehow, a new thought broke into the loop... "I'm a healthy, emotionally stable young man in his mid-twenties; I should be able to help". So I stood up and went to help. And the paralysis was gone.

So I certainly agree with this point. Excellent first point. If you find yourself in a life-threatening situation and equally paralysed, remember this: find something useful to do, stand up and do it.

I enjoyed reading that. A skydiving instructor said that what kills most people is Panic. He said that finding your rip-chord or detangling yourself is something that panic prevents, thus causing death. The "I am going to die" thought is the most dangerous one because no other thought survives in it, even when those other thoughts are what can save someone. This is why drills and practice routines are so important: to have something to fall back on automatically when the conscious mind closes down: to thus do life-affirming things that would otherise be simple and straightforward if it weren't for fear, with such things possibly also reempowering the conscious mind and bringing a person back into the present.

Something else worth mentioning is paranoia and risk aversion. A little bit is healthy, but too little or too much of it either brings one into too much life-force so that situations cannot be managed in small and understandable components thereby making life dangerous, or too little life-force so that one loses the point of being alive, which to me is pushing boundaries and growing.

1. Do the Next Right Thing

We hackers are too easily attracted by glamorous problems instead of the important ones. We'll constantly prematurely optimize or build interesting features before useful ones. Survival depends more on prioritizing and focus than genius in the typical case.

Great Read.