Every time I dive, I come out learning what I need to learn.

The 58th installment of the Anyway series, 『Anyway, Diving』, is a story about freediving.
Freediving is a sport where you dive underwater without an air tank, only as deep as your breath, and then come up again (it's a very old movie, but think of Luc Besson's "The Big Blue").
Author Hamina, who showed keen insight into women and suffering (depression) in her book "Crazy, Weird, Arrogant, and Smart Women," tells a story she has long loved or feared through freediving.


The author has been going to the ocean for freediving whenever he feels he can't hold on any longer (since a certain point).
I find it ironic that I chose the pain of drowning to escape the pain of drowning.
“Why do I have to do that? Why do I have to go through pain, discomfort, and fear to see something?” I asked myself this many times.
And then the answer came vaguely.
“Because seeing beauty and sharing how good it is with others is the only thing truly worth pursuing in life.” 『Anyway, Diving』 is a book about the beauty of freediving, but it is also a book about fear and the liberation that comes from overcoming that fear.
It's a story about how to move forward when you're too scared to take another step.

“I was shocked because it was so good.”
The teacher chuckled, then returned to organizing the equipment with a smile on his face.
The teacher's snickering expression remained for a long time.
I've seen similar expressions a few times since then.
It was an expression that knew something of the utmost goodness, something that could not be fully expressed in words or writing, something that could only be known by direct experience, something that once experienced, at some moment in everyday life, whether while washing the dishes, working, laughing and chatting at a bar, or walking home alone, it would suddenly come to mind and take you to another world for a moment, something that would make you think, “Yes, there was such an extremely good thing in life,” and humble you forever.

--- pp.7~8

I want to write that I can't exercise.
It's easier to say it that way.
I'm not an athlete, and I know in my head that the fundamental joy of moving my body and sweating is more important than whether I'm good at it or not.
Even though I know I can't, I feel ashamed every time I look in the mirror and see that I don't have more muscle and less body fat.
There are still times when I cower, unable to move freely, for fear that my body movements will look ridiculous.
I feel distressed as I zoom in on the body in the photo that was taken by chance.
And yet, you're writing about exercise with this body? I'm the first to laugh.
Yes, that's right.
I'm trying to find the courage to start talking about my body now.

--- p.14

The sea was a liberation from all this.
Why? Because there are no mirrors in the sea.
In water, buoyancy allows us to be relatively free from the effects of gravity, as in space.
I was able to free myself from the weight of my body.
The ocean was so big that it didn't matter whether I weighed 50, 60, or 70 kilos.
Every time I went to the beach, the worries I had outside the water felt trivial.
It felt like I was washing away all the dirty things and regaining a clean soul.
Besides, it was nice that everyone became shabby while diving.
In the sea, everyone, without exception, was just a small being struggling in a tight-fitting suit, tears and snot running down their face.

--- pp.14~15

I raised my head and looked out of the water again.
I could hear the sound of the boat's motor and the teacher giving instructions.
It was the world I knew.
I put my head back in and looked into the water.
In an instant, silence fell and the largest thing on Earth appeared.
It was a completely unknown world.
It's amazing that you can connect to another world just by nodding your head.
I can't believe I lived this whole time without knowing this.
Only then did I understand firsthand what the cliché meant: that humans are nothing more than insignificant creatures in the face of nature.
At that time, in the Okinawan sea, all the worries I had as a human being, such as worries about my body, worries about money, worries about my career, worries about my family, friends, and lovers, were all swept away by the constantly flowing seawater.

--- pp.28~29

The teacher said that the secret to holding your breath for a long time is to not think about anything.
The more you worry about this or that, the more oxygen your brain uses.
To hold your breath for a long time, you must stop thinking and relax your body.
To do this, you need to become aware of the parts of your body that are tense and putting unnecessary force into them.
Know your body.
Take your strength away.
I didn't realize then that this was several times more difficult than just getting something done by force.

--- p.40

No matter how many times I tried, I couldn't go 24 meters.
The more I tried to force myself to go, the more I couldn't go.
Freediving was different from writing a book.
It was something that I couldn't do by ignoring my tired body and forcing myself to do it.
Until now, I was used to achieving something by will, by doing my best, by pushing myself.
Freediving couldn't progress that way.
The sea was something I couldn't grasp with force.

--- p.69

One day, while lying down in the park, I confessed to Hyun, who was lying next to me, that after working on depression, I felt guilty whenever I felt happy.
Hyun said in a straight voice with a dumbfounded expression.

“That’s ridiculous! I worked on the Vietnam War when I was young.
So, what, do I have to cry all the time, saying, "Oh my, oh my, sob, sob, I'm so sad?" Your job is done with publishing a book.
The rest is up to the world.
Practice filling your body with joy, step by step, from the tips of your toes.
May the strength you have gained help you endure difficult times.
You never know.
With that power, you might be able to save the world later.
“I mean, if you save one puppy, you save that puppy’s world.”
--- p.81

The car accident in Hawaii and the freediving experience of holding my breath and diving into the ocean may have both cracked the sense of life I took for granted.
Maybe we hold our breath to realize that we are breathing and alive.
I love living and enjoying it.
I feel like life is worth living.
It's just that I couldn't readily admit it.
Why does wanting to live feel a little shameful?
--- p.126

“David White reminds us that much of the human experience is a conversation between loss and celebration.
“These conversational properties of reality are actually the drama of life.”
I chew on these words.
Much of human experience is a dialogue between loss and celebration, and while this is a dialogue of reality, it is also the drama of all life… .
If so, then we could say that life always moves between loss and celebration.
Soon, as long as we live, we will alternate between mourning what we have lost and rejoicing what we have gained.

--- p.137

As I was enjoying my own happiness, I began to see that there were others, too, struggling with their own problems and enduring daily failures.
I had a little idea how arduous that attempt would be.
I wish I could fully enjoy the fact that even on days when I don't achieve or succeed in anything, just getting into the water, the ocean, is enough to make me happy and joyful.
If life is about oscillating between mourning the loss of something you once had and rejoicing at gaining something you longed for, isn't every dive a microcosm of life?
Like a yoga practice of dying and being reborn each time in Savasana, the corpse pose.

--- p.157

I am continuing to practice what I can't do, practice letting go, practice letting go of greed, and practice letting go of strength.
I have been living a life where I push myself to the limit and achieve results, and grow.
I've gotten good results that way, but I want something bigger and broader.
Because I wanted to live a long time.
Because I want to create many beautiful stories.
If that's the case, it shouldn't be done at the same speed and method as it is now.
I guess that's why you came to Bohol.

--- pp.178~179