My job, when it comes right down to it, is accident prevention.
Diving is a recreation, a silly recreation, come to that. We put on life-support gear designed and manufactured by misfits and nitwits (apologies to my friends among you who are manufacturers... but you know it's true), then we go under the fucking water. Like idiots. Some of us go into caves or shipwrecks. Like bigger idiots.
I have been very lucky to make a career for myself as a dive professional. I get to see people at their absolute best, on vacation, when they're doing what they enjoy most. Much of my job really is living the dream, sharing what I love with people, and smiling my way through very pleasant days.
Not all days have been pleasant.
I've swam around with bodies. I've done CPR. I've seen fear you don't ever want to see.
My job is to make sure those days don't happen.
As guides we asses our divers and only bring them places appropriate to their experience and ability. As instructors we only issue certifications to people who will dive responsibly within the limitation of the training.
We do these things to prevent having to respond to an accident. Prevention, I assure you, is far better.
Those of us who have seen accidents or the aftermath can tell you that they share a commonality.
Speed.
Things go from OK to not OK really really fucking fast. Way faster than you think.
Going 80 down the highway having a lovely day... glance down at your phone... eyes back up just in time to see the color of the bicyclist's helmet as they go over your windshield before you even register that you heard the thud. Your life is now going in a different direction.
Fast.
I'm not talking about diving, though.
The Gulf of America? Greenland? Panama? Ukraine? Gaza? Climate going haywire. Amounts of wealth being accumulated in numbers that are so big they aren't even real. Facebook about to be abandoned to troll farms. All the shit that was insane in the news cycle yesterday? And the day before that we've already forgotten about? All the escalating things that seem bizarre, unreal, impossible.
I know you know it and I know you hate hearing it, but things are about to be not OK.
When it happens, it will happen fast.
If you're actually reading this far into something I've written that means you and I care about eachother to some degree which means I'm probably worried about you.
Be careful out there.
There is no prevention.
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