The Loop
Too often I forget I will die. I’m back to my senses when I remember. Lately, it's the Irish Sea that brings me back. Before entering I make an agreement with myself, after 60 front strokes I’ll decide whether to stay or not. The cold obstacle will take more practice to cut through swiftly. Sixty strokes in and my heart pounds; my breath is richer, precious— I can take more in, I want more in. Above water the air resting on my skin has weight and the breeze has a familiar whisper – ‘welcome back’, I feel slightly embarrassed for leaving in the first place. A pearlescent highway before me sparkles toward a vanishing horizon. I’ll stay as long as I can. The sea, sky, and, sun merge into a clearing I don’t feel separate from. I remember to savor all of this, while I can.
Sea swimming as a way back to the senses is not far from a religious route – an aqua pilgrimage. The steps into the water become ritualistic in no time at all. The cold demands it. Tension will not be permitted. I’m not alone in this discovery. The cold call is being answered around the world. Many a person is embracing icy self-preservation. Where the sea is out of reach, the sacrament of chill gets recreated at home with ice baths taking the place of hot tubs. Getting back to the senses, daily, is coming into fashion - a reaction to the technological revolution no doubt.
Learning to live with the portals that leave us numb to the physical world requires the physical world to reassert itself. At any moment a reach into the pocket can bring shock, horror, comedy, breasts, death count, viruses, good guys and bad, homelessness, twerking, taxes, and the other fears and desires we program in. Since a few thumb strokes are all it takes to wind the cellular centrifuge to maximum propulsion, casual mind-slinging warrants a counter-practice. Routes back to the senses need to be chartered.
The natural world is where many a hiker, climber, hunter, or recreational runner reintegrates into their physical existence. The interplayers of the dancing, combat, and performing arts tune in with coordinated expression. The pump and grind at the gymnasium lifts the spirit of the athlete. And toys set the tone for the bikers, surfers, fallers, and flyers. Roots planted in physicality keep the connection tight to a sense of who or what we are – the human animal. The ways in which we retune aren't as important as feeling in tune, but they are vital. The games we play to come back to our senses will be our salvation as we approach, and pass, the singularity.
This close to the tech event horizon means sensible groundwork is needed. In preparation, we can again adopt new norms. Different from the two-metre, masked, and sanitised new norm, holding on to our sense-ability means tactility needs to stay within reach, daily. With portals to ever-enticing digital realms multiplying and the great observer, AI, already sharing home with us, firm anchoring to the physical world will prevent a slippage – keeping our humanity in touch. Lifestyles will need to be revised to secure the connection to the original play station, Earth.
Charting a course to have physicality as habituated as teeth brushing is best mapped in loops – positive feedback loops. For physical hygiene to be on par with oral hygiene day to day, a measured return to base is the surest path to a clear way. The first principle of an effective positive feedback loop is not dying. The second is not traumatising yourself. And third, if at all possible, enjoying the trip. A successful journey is the one you return home from, better again with a smile. And with that comes the fourth principle, set yourself up to succeed. Forming a new physical engagement with the world is the beginning of a beautiful relationship – one that will literally change you, physically and cognitively. Each venture out, when exploring new practices, could be looked at like dating. There may be a few bum dates. What’s important is that you come home, untraumatised, like in regular dating. When you return with a smile, on the surface or within, you’ve found something with meaning, and it's time to get crafty.
Setting up a successful positive feedback loop requires some game rules engineered in your favour. The first rule is determining what is a successful entry. Make this something you are pretty sure you can do - aim low like ‘Use one machine at the gym’ or ‘run 1 hill sprint’ or ‘attend a class without taking it too seriously’. A key question for each loop is: what little bit extra wouldn't be a strain?/would enhance my experience? The positive feedback loop is a momentum generator. Completing the loop is like an orbit slingshot catapulting further to a new low aim – two machines, two hill sprints, attention to one detail in the class. Once you don’t die or traumatise yourself and hit your successful trip marker on each date, the loop will perpetuate until you arrive at enjoyment – your personal connection to a preferred state of being, already with expanded physical capacity.
60 strokes are what it currently takes me to penetrate my resistance to cold water paradise. Then I play with distance to swim, or quantity of sprints, always within the tip of my reach. I’ll keep looping my limits outwards to a mile a swim this year without stealing the joy. When I return home, with a smile, I am an available father, a doting partner, and a diligent professional, savouring the gift of life. Without gamifying my sea entry, the connection to that state would dissipate rather than smoothen. With clear access points to the same, or at least similar, state, I am never far from available. Resistance doesn’t exist anymore for stilling, jiu-jitsu, weight lifting, and the other practices I’ve looped in.
Savouring has become a preferred state of being. When I drift away into complacency a pang like hunger or thirst alerts me to seek a return. Starved by stagnancy, or drained mindless, tension, aches, and irritability cue me to get back in touch. Once I return to my senses I remember, I will die, but now, I’m alive. I feel the weight of air on my skin. It whispers a welcome back, and again I feel slightly embarrassed for having left.