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Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why QUOTES

Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why QUOTES

1 " Survival is the celebration of choosing life over death. We know we're going to die. We all die. But survival is saying: perhaps not today. In that sense, survivors don't defeat death, they come to terms with it. "

― Laurence Gonzales , Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why

2 " Everyone who dies out there dies of confusion. "

― Laurence Gonzales , Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why

3 " To deal with reality you must first recognize it as such. "

― Laurence Gonzales , Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why

4 " The word 'experienced' often refers to someone who's gotten away with doing the wrong thing more frequently than you have. "

― Laurence Gonzales , Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why

5 " On the occasion of every accident that befalls you, remember to turn to yourself and inquire what power you have for turning it to use. "

― Laurence Gonzales , Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why

6 " Knowledge of the sort you need does not begin with information, it begins with experience and perception. But there is a dark and twisty road from experience and perception to correct action. "

― Laurence Gonzales , Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why

7 " We don't understand the power of nature and the world because we don't live with it. Our environment is designed to sustain us. We are the domestic pets of a human zoo called civilization. "

― Laurence Gonzales , Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why

8 " The sun beams are always there. The trick is in seeing them. "

― Laurence Gonzales , Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why

9 " The world we imagine seems as real as the ones we’ve experienced. We suffuse the model with the emotional values of past realities. And in the thrall of that vision (call it “the plan,” writ large), we go forth and take action. If things don’t go according to the plan, revising such a robust model may be difficult. In an environment that has high objective hazards, the longer it takes to dislodge the imagined world in favor of the real one, the greater the risk. In nature, adaptation is important; the plan is not. It’s a Zen thing. We must plan. But we must be able to let go of the plan, too. "

― Laurence Gonzales , Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why

10 " To survive, you must develop secondary emotions that function in a strategic balance with reason. "

― Laurence Gonzales , Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why

11 " To lose everything at such a glorious eternity is far sweeter than to win by plodding through a cautious, painless, featureless life. "

― Laurence Gonzales , Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why

12 " I am constantly surrounded by a display of natural wonders...It is beauty surrounded by ugly fear. I write in my log that it's a view of heaven from a seat in hell. (survivor after 53 days at sea) "

― Laurence Gonzales , Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why

13 " The perfect adventure shouldn’t be that much more hazardous in a real sense than ordinary life, for that invisible rope that holds us here can always break. We can live a life of bored caution and die of cancer. Better to take the adventure, minimize the risks, get the information, and then go forward in the knowledge that we’ve done everything we can. No, "

― Laurence Gonzales , Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why

14 " Helping someone else is the best way to ensure your own survival. It takes you out of yourself. It helps you to rise above your fears. Now you’re a rescuer, not a victim. And seeing how your leadership and skill buoy others up gives you more focus and energy to persevere. The cycle reinforces itself: You buoy them up, and their response buoys you up. Many people who survive alone report that they were doing it for someone else (a wife, boyfriend, mother, son) back home. "

― Laurence Gonzales , Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why

15 " The maddening thing for someone with a Western scientific turn of mind is that it’s not what’s in your pack that separates the quick from the dead. It’s not even what’s in your mind. Corny as it sounds, it’s what’s in your heart. "

― Laurence Gonzales , Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why

16 " Only 10 to 20 percent of untrained people can stay calm and think in the midst of a survival emergency. "

― Laurence Gonzales , Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why

17 " We think we believe what we know, but we only truly believe what we feel. "

― Laurence Gonzales , Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why

18 " Choking is about thinking too much. Panic is about thinking too little. "

― Laurence Gonzales , Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why

19 " Shit happens, and if we just want to restrict ourselves to things where shit can't happen... we're not going to do anything very interesting. "

― Laurence Gonzales , Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why

20 " CHARLES PERROW is a sociologist known for studying industrial accidents, such as those that occur with nuclear power plants, airlines, and shipping. In Normal Accidents, he wrote that “We construct an expected world because we can’t handle the complexity of the present one, and then process the information that fits the expected world, and find reasons to exclude the information that might contradict it. Unexpected or unlikely interactions are ignored when we make our construction. "

― Laurence Gonzales , Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why