

Survival Skills - brfox
http://adventure.nationalgeographic.com/2008/08/everyday-survival/laurence-gonzales-text

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swombat
_1\. Do the Next Right Thing_

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.

~~~
michaelneale
Did you get the self evaluating "life before your eyes" feeling? I have once
(its a bit embarrassing, but I nearly choked on a 1 dollar coin, and I wasn't
young enough for that to be a realistic possibility) - but I remember despair
and then acceptance and then it was like a dream. All in about 30 seconds of
not breathing... I would never have believed it had I not experienced it.

The funny thing was, while I was "thinking" all this, my hands were actively
pressing my chest as hard as they could which eventually dislodged it, but I
have no memory of doing that.

~~~
swombat
No, I didn't actually. My mind was literally just a loop of the terrifying
thought "I'm about to die", with nothing else, apart from a very persistent
soundtrack (a progressive house tune, one of my favourites at the time, that
kept going through my head for the following 45 minutes). I think the music
was part of my brain's attempt to keep me calm and focused.

Once I started moving, the soundtrack continued, but the loop was gone.

~~~
biohacker42
Thanks for sharing your stories guys, great stuff.

But when you're old and telling your respective stories to your grandkids
replace dollar coin with prime rib and progressive house tune with Beethoven's
9th.

Cheers

~~~
michaelneale
Thanks for the tip. I was going to replace it with wrestling a terrorist or
something like that... let it get embellished over time.

What an embarrassing way to go...

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adrianwaj
Save 15 page turns:
[http://adventure.nationalgeographic.com/print/2008/08/everyd...](http://adventure.nationalgeographic.com/print/2008/08/everyday-
survival/laurence-gonzales-text)

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.

------
JoelSutherland
As it relates to startups, the first bullet point almost says it all:

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.

