Along with a very family-unfriendly piece of advice!

I just learned about the infamous Nutty Putty (yes, real name) Cave Incident from 2009. Learned about it from, of all places, reddit. To quickly summarize the incident: a well known cave system, advertised as "beginner-friendly" for cave divers, known as Nutty Putty Cave became the site of a horrifying tragedy. A cave diver, John, along with his brother went on a trip to this cave and, after reaching a certain point, decided to challenge themselves with a more difficult section of the cave known as "The Birth-Canal". Suffice it to say, that section of the cave was incredibly narrow. Unfortunately, the cave also branched off and John took a wrong turn. He came to what he thought was the Birth Canal and pushed himself into a spot where he could not go any further. He also was not able to back out and was stuck upside down, with his arms at his sides. After 26 hours, all rescue attempts failed, and John died of cardiac arrest. Something that stands out to me is that, from the maps of the cave, the area that John got stuck in looked like it was almost a perfect fit for him...like it was there, waiting.

So I learned about this on reddit. And like every other pit of depravity called "Social media" that the internet throws at us, the comments section was something to behold. A lot of people were calling the guy stupid, not because he went the wrong way in the cave, but because he was a cave diver in the first place. These comments upset me for some reason, and I came to realize that was because I simultaneously agreed with them, but also because I completely understand why people do things like cave diving/spelunking, sky-diving...it just occurred to me that there's a lot of different kinds of "diving", all of which can get pretty scary but I digress; people do this shit because facing down something that terrifies you, willingly, and making it into your hobby makes you feel like a god. For as long as I can remember, I've been terrified of heights and suffer vertigo from it. When I was 19, I got the opportunity to fly in a Cesna airplane and even took control mid-flight. It was a nerve-racking experience...and the pilot said I might be a natural. The reason he said that was because, in my desperate attempts to not go too far down because ground and not go too far up because lack of air, then ground, I maintained the altitude by pulling up and pushing down just ever so lightly, which is something most pilots have to be taught to do. I was very happy to rejoin the ground (safely), but holy fuck did that feel amazing!

The family-unfriendly word of warning is this: adrenaline is a hell of a drug, but keep in mind that cocaine is probably LESS hazardous to your health, all things considered!