Project Vision 21

Recently, I have repeatedly heard that expression that says that the best way to cope with a storm (that is, the chaos we now live in) is to be close to the storm. I must say that, at first, it seemed like a wrong suggestion because, after all, isn't it better to get away from the storm and find a safe place?

But then I heard an interview with a maritime safety expert and that interview helped me better understand the deep meaning of the mentioned phrase.

Last April, Australia's National Radio interviewed Brad Roberts, an officer with the Australian Maritime Safety Authority. In this context, Roberts explained that ship captains prefer to be near the storm because that way they can "feel" it in a strictly literal way, that is, feel it with their body.

"Feeling" the storm with the body leads to the storm "making sense", not as if it were talking about a dictionary definition or a historical or scientific explanation, but in the sense (used here intentionally) that the ship's captain "connects" with the storm.

At the same time, the more experienced captains “feel” their boats as extensions of themselves, a feeling that they know how to convey to their crew. That allows the captains to connect with the ship and its crew as if they were all “one organism,” explained Roberts. 

That way, when a storm hits and the storm becomes unavoidable, the captain, his crew, and the ship act in unity not to fight the storm, but to know where to be at each moment of the storm, so that the storm do not sink the ship.

According to Roberts, his research indicates that those captains who "seek shelter" or decide to "wait for rescue to arrive" tend to face greater problems and worse consequences than those who decide to face the storm. (By the way, Roberts based his research in the new discipline of neurophenomenology.)

The latter, Roberts emphasizes, use not only their instruments or their knowledge to decide, but also their own bodies. And, according to Roberts, that practice of "embodied knowledge" (or "incorporated" if this word is understood in its sense of "in the body") can be applied to almost any circumstance in life.

Unfortunately, I add, we have not been educated to "pay attention" to our own body, much less to access the knowledge and wisdom of the body. For this reason, we are no longer part of a tradition in which the body is one of the "souls" (manifestations of being) of each one of us, and not just a purely material element. 

In fact, we are taught to reject our body, for example by not letting it rest or modifying it to align with more socially accepted body types.

As a consequence of belittling our body, when the storms of life (personal or global) arrive, we are no longer connected or even with ourselves to respond adequately to the storm. Let's learn the lessons of the wise sailors.