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WHERE IS THE LOVE?
LOUISE TREWAVAS
UNDERSTANDING WHAT TURNS OTHER PEOPLE ON can't be achieved with a closed mind. Take cave-diving. OK, so lots of people think that going deep into a dark, narrow cave is a bad idea to start with. Mention that the cave is flooded, so you'll be diving it, and most people will just smile politely and figure that your next medication is overdue.
But cave-diving is almost as fascinating as cave-divers themselves. People who like squeezing into tight passages and penetrating deeper - I'm sure you can see why I'm all in favour of a hands-on experience.
But is it just a case of different strokes for different folks? I think there may be more to it than that: after all, what are we hoping to find as we swim into the darkness of that cave?
This puzzle about human motivation gets thrown into sharp, comic relief when governments get involved. Those poor British pot-holers who got trapped in a Mexican cave system were the latest example.
Mexico's bureaucrats refused to believe that humans would choose to go deep into caves just for joy of exploration. Naturally the guys must have been up to something ludicrously dodgy to take such a risk - hunting for treasure, spying, prospecting for uranium...
It reminded me of the British plane-spotters arrested as spies in Greece for the heinous crime of getting off on watching planes landing. Don't the Greek authorities understand that some people take pleasure in odd things? This is the land that gave us Demis Roussos!
Tolerating and celebrating oddball behaviour is one of the very best British characteristics, but interestingly it took Rousseau, a Frenchman, to sum it up: "If I am not better, at least I am different."
After all, what is the point of being Number One if you are fundamentally tedious and naff? We could ask Demis Roussos...
There is nothing tedious or naff about giving up your time to rescue people trapped in a Mexican cave. Some of those who were trapped couldn't dive - imagine your first try-dive being inside a cave, in dreadful viz, with your very life depending on your ability to hold it together and make it through a lengthy flooded passage!
That is an adventure of epic proportions, and fair play to Rick Stanton and Jason Mallinson for pulling it off successfully.
Not that you saw much of them on TV. In true cave-diver style, they kept a low profile and got on with the job without doing the big hero bit. Isn't that part of what makes cave-divers so intriguing?
Some divers are motivated by finding treasure: portholes, bells, telegraphs. Some are desperate for recognition: film deals, TV appearances. There is little chance of either for cave-divers; what they do is hidden and the world is unbothered. Even peer acceptance is elusive.
So cave-diving is physically hard, mistakes will kill you, nobody cares, and there is no reward! There's something very pure and inspiring about that, which is why Martyn Farr's book The Darkness Beckons should be compulsory reading for all divers.
When we swim into the darkness, perhaps what we really seek is our love of everything that gives life a greater value than mere existence.
I can't pretend that cave-divers are higher beings, devoid of ego, because some of the most vicious in-fighting ever witnessed in diving has taken place in cave-diving circles. But running beneath that is a spirit and passion that recalls those scenes from Lord of the Rings when the warriors are lined up against hordes of horribleness.
The most apt line comes from the character who loves underground passages, so is most naturally like a cave-diver - the ferocious fighting dwarf Gimli. "Certainty of death. Small chance of success. What are we waiting for?!"
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