I had a confronting experience last week as I swam through a natural saltwater pool into a dark cavern which stretched deep into the rock. Swimming breaststroke beside one another, my partner asked me if I wanted to swim through the underwater passage into the second cavern. He had done it before as a teenager, he said, following a cousin through to the other side. I have a high capacity (if not appetite) for risk—and ordinarily hearing that local children as young as five easily pass through this underwater passage would quell any concerns—but this time my body responded quite differently to the proposition, trembling slightly at the thought. I asked how long it had taken him to swim through. He laughed said it felt like forever, but could have only been a few seconds, as he hunted for the opening below the water. That he couldn’t remember where it was only added to my feverish anxiety, to the extent that when he ducked under the water to check I tried to pull him back up. He suggested I come down and see for myself that the passage was lit from the other side. I am a strong swimmer above and underwater, but I had to muster a tremendous will to even stick my head under. The blurry image of the passage lit up from the other side only fed my irrational anxiety and my trembling became shaking.
Yet, still, I was convinced that maybe, perhaps, hopefully, I would manage it. The man I love ducked told me he would go through, check it out briefly, and then come back just to show me it was easy. I agreed and panted in the dark as he went under the water and didn’t come back up. The seconds ticked by and my heart raced. Children splashed in the cavern behind me and I marvelled at how apart we were, them freely roaming the cave while I treaded water both physically, emotionally, spiritually. I told myself nothing bad had happened but I started to believe it had. It had been too long and these things happen all the time. I called out his name to the black rock. Silence greeted me. I urged myself to go underwater, to go through and see that he was all right. To my quiet and profound shame, I could not. I ducked under to check that the passage was clear, but I could not bring myself to go through it. The terror held me in place, and so I splashed, feebly, pathetically, catching the attention of the children who came over to find out how they could help but they could not because I could not even help myself.
Two minutes had passed when I saw a dark shape under the water and I reached down for it even though he was already breaking the surface. “Sorry,” was the first word that came out of his mouth and I could have burst into tears. There was a man on the other side who had started chatting to him, he said, and then he couldn’t find the entrance to the passage because it isn’t lit on my side. He asked me if I wanted to follow him through. “Absolutelyfuckingnot,” I panted at him. “I thought something had happened to you.” I was calling out to you, he said. Me too, I said.
In the days since, I’ve thought a lot about why I couldn’t bring myself to take that risk, not even when my imagination ran wild and envisioned that the worst had happened because it could happen. I was a discordant symphony of selves, each determined that reality was their interpretation of it, arguing with one another about what I was truly experiencing. Even when I considered that the one I love was trapped underwater and I should go through another part of me said surely not and then a third said but such things do happen and a fourth said to think so without evidence is just dramatic and while they went back and forth between themselves my body kept my head above the water and refused to do anything more.
As we were swimming out of the cavern, me light-headed with relief, I thought of how so many people around the world are confronted with that same possibility of the worst unveiling itself over the coming decades and, like me, convincing themselves that it cannot possibly be happening to them. And how even if they did think it could happen to them, they may very well freeze and be unable to act at all. The evidence as to how the world could be very soon is absolutely terrifying. But how can we act from a place of fear? How can we act at all, let alone effectively?
Fear is only a great motivator when exits are in sight. When none exist, we need the temerity to bore new holes in dark caverns.
Important Update
I’m migrating Planet: Critical off of Substack and onto Ghost, the non-profit competitor of Substack which is financed entirely by its creators. I’m one of many Substackers jumping ship from a site that feels like it is drowning in mediocrity. Substack is backed by venture capital and already the company has started changing their original ethos to protect their bottom line. I last got wind that they are no longer promoting paywall-free Substacks in their feed algorithm, and I don’t intend on hanging around and seeing how else they attempt to force us into selling our “content”. I imagine the 10% flat rate they take from creators’ revenue will increase, too, in the coming years.
There’s nothing you have to do or worry about with regards to Planet: Critical’s migration. You’ll still receive the weekly newsletter and weekly podcast in your inbox every week, have access to the website, and you’ll still have control over your subscription. All I ask is a grace period of 1–2 weeks while I get the new site up and running.
It feels like a necessary step in the right direction, away from the noise and into the quiet. I hope you all stay on this journey with me.
More from me very soon.
Stay critical,
Rachel
I'll look into Ghost. In my experience, all platforms find ways to go back on their original commitments. Rents will proliferate and increase until we are unplugged; until then, we produce and consume content to fuel the supercomputers and decrease our agency. We will all do what we must when we have no other choice. The squeeze is accelerating. Boycott and Divest. We're going to need considerably more than 12 steps.
More to say about fear. There's another kind. It would overtake all of humanity if people understood the peril we are in from overshoot, and that could be what saves us. My premise is that awareness of it being life or death should get everyone working together to avert what will happen if we don't do anything.