Scuba Addiction

Scuba diving is a transcendental experience. Life is so much better underwater than on land. You are weightless, after being bothered by gravity all of your life. You float through sun rays playing in the water column. There is no one there asking you to fill out a form or give you change. On top of that you see creatures so unlike the ones you are familiar with from your land-life. It puts you on a different level emotionally and in terms of sensory stimulation. There is nothing quite like it. A lot of people I know spend much of their cash and vacation time breathing from an aluminum tank. They are addicts, in a good sense.

There is some academic research on the transformative powers of scuba diving, mainly for people with physical impairments. That of course is another strength of scuba – if you are handicapped when it comes to moving on land, you can still fly underwater – and this literature is nice and solid. Santiago Perez and colleagues write that “Reporting scuba diving as a transformative experience was not influenced by the scuba divers’ personality domains, diving level, demographic characteristics, or the number of years they had been diving.”. Wise words.

But, what is missing is spreading the word about the transformative powers of scuba to the general public. A documentary. Interviews. Underwater imagery. Deep thoughts in the background narration. Stay tuned.

Literature

Santiago Perez, T., Crowe, B. M., Townsend, J. N., Rosopa, P. J., & Kaufman, M. R. (2023). Can scuba diving transform the lives of people with physical impairments? A mixed methods study. Disability and Rehabilitation, 1-14.