6 hours a year on a boat
I’ve written some weird stuff this week, it’s been odd, I’ve written about really downbeat things like suicide, Swedish house music, ATPD audio issues and a couple of short stories. I didn’t want to use any of them on my blog as they kinda paint the picture of an unhappy soul, contemplating death and diminishing hearing and sad music. That’s not at all how I feel, I’ve just been by the sea and when I'm by the sea I write. I don’t really choose what I write, I just start writing and see where it leads and it’s been leading to some odd places, I’ll post them over the coming months, but for now, I wanted what I post to reflect where I am and how I feel. Which is in Lindos Rhodes, by the Aegean sea, feeling grateful, happy and renewed. So here is an adaptation of a journal entry. You’ll have to excuse how I write, I go on tangents and side quests, I also talk to my diary like a person, in this case, that person is you. Enjoy.
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I am here with my family on holiday, but also, I think, on a very well needed break from what our life has become. Not that our lives have become something negative, far from it, our life has become something new and different. Naa, I'm overstating it, it’s not a complicated word to find at all, our life has become FULL.
Each of us has our own shit going on but to a wild extent; I have Raven Forge, yoga teacher training and mine and my brother’s other ventures. Caz is knees deep in running her own yoga studio and doing a degree in yoga therapy. Izzy is going into big school which is huge change for her, and Max is going into year 9 and starting his GCSEs. Sarah has left her job and is learning to be an accountant and, in the meantime, is helping me with my admin and finance at Raven Forge. Add that into the already busy life of family, parenting and trying to keep some modicum of a social life and yea, life is full.
Today however, we are going out on a boat. We booked onto a day trip out of Lindos that promised 4 stops for swimming, a 6 hour round trip and some of the bluest waters we would ever see. It delivered in droves. We relaxed and enjoyed the waves, we swam for hours, found caves, dove for hermit crabs and found exciting fishlike eels and flounders. It was exceptional. Genuinely what holiday dreams are made of.
The sea has always done something special for me and my family. I know me and Caz are the same, always have been, for 22 years now, and that’s passed to our kids really hard. The sea is something we need, and whether we’re next to it, on it or in it, it hits us like a freshly made bed, slap bang in the stressful lifestyle. It’s not fleeting either, it has a lasting effect, something I can feel long after I get back from the sea.
The sea and the effects it has on people has interested me for a long time. Psychologists talk about “blue space”, this is the calming effect that water has on the human mind. Studies have shown (I actually hate it when people say this, but studies have in fact shown) that proximity to the sea can reduce stress, lower anxiety and even ease symptoms of depression. We don’t know for sure, but it’s got something to do with the repetitive sound of waves, the light scattering across the surface and something I don’t even pretend to understand, the negative ions in the air that all conspire to slow the heartbeat and force your brain to chill out… No wait that’s wrong.
I think modern thinking about things like this has it backwards. This blue space, the light the waves, the smell of salt in the air… that’s how life is supposed to be. The sea is a forced reset to something organic and real, something natural. Sure the human made boats look wonderful floating in the sun, but they’re not the focus, the nature is the focus. It’s not that the Blue space and light is affecting your brain and forcing it to do anything, Modern living is forcing us to be stressed and disconnected, that’s the reality of the social science at play here.
But there is more to it than science. Being at sea washes away the gross thick layers of technological living and, well, modern life. There is no never ending laundry pile on the deck of a boat. No business emails to answer in the sea, no bins to put out on the shore. The to-do list shrinks down from an insurmountable scroll of things we do day to day into just a handful of things. There’s something drastically simplistic about this and in simplicity we find calm. I know this can’t be life for the vast majority of people, it’s fucking expensive to live a life of no responsibilities. Life is not remotely like this for me, I get it 6 hours a year on this boat and my responsibilities are vast, and wonderful, but it is what I'm chasing it for my retirement. I'm starting to think the sea is an actual holistic remedy for modern life.
We don’t get the proof from how we live in modern culture though, it’s all in how people or cultures with less technology and responsibility are just less prone to.. you know... dyeing, and killing themselves, literally.
Life focussed on community, friendship, offline communications, a hug, the sea, the land, growing something. That’s real life. I know it sounds like flowers in your hair, hippy bullshit, but it’s not, the blue zones in Japan, Greece, Italy and Costa Rica are fucking proof. No one is braiding each other’s hair or living in communes and fighting over bread (mostly). They’re talking, baking, growing, fucking, smoking, drinking and laughing. No bullshit, just purpose and community. We are the ones who have it wrong, and it’s so, so recent when this change started, we’re so fucking sure we’re supposed to be locked to our phones, online communities and the TV or more recently and infinatly worse, reels and… well it’s shit, we all know it. We enjoy junk food but at least we know it’s fucking junk, we should be honest about the junk content we’re taking on board en masse as we are about food. Junk food in moderation, junk content in moderation.
The average screen time of someone in the UK is now over 7 hours. 7 HOURS. That’s time looking at a screen, and much more importantly, time not spent looking at family, friends, the fire, going for a walk. I’m sat writing now, and I use my phone, but I'm scared, I'm scared for what this means for society. We crave simplicity, if we want to live long happy lives, then the goal should be to try and live like the long and happy people who live today. A more simple life. I'm not talking about removing all technology or living like the Aamish (I have no idea if that has 2 a’s but it sounds like it does) I'm just saying we need more simplicity, I know its possible, because ive seen it, and so have most people over the age of 30-35. Only 50-60 years ago we still existed in communities, ate in groups, spoke to each other. I actually remember growing up in Middleton on Cowling where we would have galas and maypole dances, and I know that sounds like some Snufkin bullshit, but it’s just how we lived. That was only 30 years ago. This level of stress and anxiety is new, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise
That level of simplicity changes the way we relate to each other and how many things we have to do on a day to day basis to simply not fall behind. In modern British culture… Actually, I was about to explain the effects simple living has on families, but allow me for a moment to focus on something very positive in my life, rather than what I normally do which is reflecting on something difficult. It’s going to sound like I'm boasting, I'm not, I'm proud.
In my house we’re very close knit, I'm exceptionally lucky, my kids do play together, be it computer games, or in the garden with swords. Me and Caz and Sarah often find time to garden or to go out for a glass of wine in the afternoon and just talk about life, the world and everything. At the centre of it all, is Caz and I, who, as often as we can, steal time away from everything to stay connected, be that talking, walking, laughing, eating or fucking – all of them, as often as possible. In fact, If and when I'm old, and I'm lucky enough to still be with Caz, and our marriage has withstood this mental life we’ve built for ourselves - and some young whipper-snapper asks me what the secret to being married for so long is, I’ll tell ‘em what I just told you and hopefully they cringe at the thought of our wrinkled old bodies going at it, but I hope they’ll listen.
I got sidetracked. We’re talking about simplicity and water. Bloody ADHD. Actually, fuck it, I'm on holiday, I'm drinking prosecco and I’m feeling pretty groovy so you’ll indulge me a prolonged ADHD side quest.
Me and my kids have this game we play in the ocean, it’s basic, but it can keep us entertained for literally hours. First of all, and this is far more important than you realise, we have to find a rock. This rock is going to be pivotal in our game, it has to be white, easy to see and nice to hold. I can’t describe to you what this rock looks like, because it’s different every time, but we all agree as soon as it’s found, it’s like we found the exact same one from last time and we’re all like “yup, that’s our rock”.
Then begins the meat of it, the person who found the rock lobs it as far as they can out to sea, and the next person has to dive down and pick it up from the bottom of the ocean. The further we get from shore, the shorter we throw it, till we’re just moving it a foot at a time, diving inches lower per throw. We dive like this for hours, the kids started, first time we ever played this game, having to put their head in the water to reach the rock. It was a game played at the shore. But now, in their teens, I’ve seen my kids (and this is not classic dad exaggeration) dive down to about 6 meters for that white rock, they look so small when they’re down there and they either come back with the rock, or we’ve found the limit and the rock stays where it is. I like to think the beaches of Greek islands have these white rocks just sat, motionless in the still tide of the Ionian and Aegean sea where me and the kids found our limits.
See, tangents work out in the end, this brings us back to where we were, talking about the sea, being at the sea and why it’s so fucking great. I know it’s not just me, and I know it’s not just modern. In actual timeless spiritual traditions across the world, the sea has been seen as a place of renewal and cleansing. Just look at baptism, ritual washing, pilgrimages to sacred waters, those cool as fuck funerals in Hawaii with surfboards, and you know, just that feeling the ocean gives you in general, they all point to the same truth I’ve been experiencing my whole life: stepping into water feels like starting over. I genuinely don’t know why that is maybe it’s the way it feels to be submerged, not in a pool or a bath, but in something wild, unpredictable and real. It could be the way it takes your body, and you can for a brief moment, feel weightless. It could be the fact that sound changes underwater into that muffled almost womb like noise.
For me personally it feels like it’s cleansing the technological grime of everyday life, the frayed edges of my ever waning patience, like filling a depleted bar but over the year. Again, I don’t know about you, but I get this cripplingly heavy anxiety, it’s so subtle, yet massive, I know these two things are contradictory, but it is what it is. I just don’t really realise I even have it, it grows in the same way as your kids grow, you see them every day and one day they seem 2 foot taller. That’s the same as it is with my stress, one day someone will tell me how stressed I am, and even after all this time, I'm taken by surprise that they’re right.
My point, no matter how laboured and scattered, is that this massive accumulative stress and anxiety that comes of not just existing in a modern and technological world, but also building and maintaining my massive businesses, looking after and maintaining my family and relationships, both romantic and social and the effort required to maintain my own happiness and mental health, is not normal. The businessmen of yesteryear didn’t need to manage a social online presence, or use fucking LinkedIn (wuuuuurp) or be contactable via a mobile phone with emails and texts their whole lives, it’s the technology that adds the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back. We can’t remove it, but we can become aware of it and moderate it. I'm going to figure out how to do this for myself and my family, who already do so well without it turning into yet another anxiety. Wait…. This is another anxiety. Fuck. At least if I give this one time and attention, it should lower some of the other technologically linked ones.
We’ll all be fine. We just need awareness, love and the sea.
Tom
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