There is about 14 pounds of air pressure holding you all in. Piled not just atop your head but squeezing in from all sides, all nooks and crannies.

Should you, in classic sci-fi fashion, be suddenly thrown from 14 lbs to 0 lbs. Your blood would boil, your lungs would shrivel or explode or something. All of your in stuff, not nailed down by muscle or bone, would try and escape you. Your eyes would bulge and you’d struggle for oxygen that isn’t there in a truly empty space. And you’d probably shit yourself. Just sayin.

But pressure builds diamonds they say. Well my ears hurt if I happen to dive to the bottom of a residential pool. Image if the weight of air above you suddenly doubled. How long could your lungs bare the extra strain? Would you feel heavy and have trouble catching your breath. Could you sleep? What if it were tripled, or more. Like a baby on your chest, then a toddler, then a teen. Soon your diaphragm would give in and like a kids first asthma attack on the playground I think you’d rather look like a fish pulled to flop on shore. Straining and gasping and red in the face.

Yet free divers can master this. Not only do they hold their breaths for 10s of minutes at a time, but they deal with the pressure. Slowly. Slow down. Slow up. Or the delta will kill you. Air pockets in the blood. Diving sickness. And mountain climbers deal with it too. Acclimating themselves to height extremes. Where the air is thin.

Think of it, when you go for a hike and climb in elevation. You are literally becoming more free. There is less pressure up there. In lots a ways.

Not sure what the divers get out of going down to new depths, but I bet its something similar. After all a hug is an application of pressure. Maybe its like a cool blue womb down there for them.

But take the best Everest summit-er and free diver in the world, and submit them to sudden changes in pressure, even degrees of pressure they have long mastered, and they would be toast.

After all, it takes millions of years to make a diamond.

All of this to say to take changes slowly. Life is so fast and our modern dirge is probably the fasted pace life of all human time. Strength and adaptation come incrementally. To get anywhere you have to take steps.

But then what to do when you get thrown? When the storm winds toss you far from your paced path. When suddenly everything around you is made entirely different. Should you sprint back to familiar ground? No. Think of the diver. And think of someone who never seems to move anywhere, always taking on step forward just to take it back. You need change. You need the correct amount of pressure overhead. You must maintain a certain level of strain for yourself to function.

Still. Can’t survive a vacuum. Can’t survive the ocean floor. What to do if you find yourself there. Go slowly? Go slowly when the earth shatters below your feet and meteors rain? Is it like the venom of a snake? A sudden strike from somewhere unseen and now death is your veins. To run to panic only means raising your heart rate, bringing on your inevitable death sooner?

This riddle of change. Of pressure. What do you do when the change is too soon, too great.

Pretend it isn’t real. Don’t acknowledge it. Don’t google it. Don’t mention it by name. Give it an acronym. Don’t even have the heart to use it. Tell no one. Walk the path you were on. To deviate is to mean that the change mattered, that the change is real. Ignore it away. Keep it in the back of your mind, to keep an eye on it. To make sure it doesn’t grow or come again. But don’t make eye contact with it. That monster, the delta, the life alterer. Stay calm for now. Don’t let the venom travel quicker toward your heart. Know that you will explode, or implode, whichever it is. But for now hold your breath.

Maybe your small steps can carry you down the hill. Fist over fist may you climb the rope back to sea level. Maybe maybe maybe it’ll all just level out. Or maybe your body and mind are more moldable than you think. If you didn’t die immediately, you might not die in the next moment. And if you survive that one, perhaps hanging on a second longer, yes, another moment passes. Let the pass. Each that you cling to gives you a stronger grip on the next. Soon you’ll have a foothold. Soon two. Once you’re steady enough. Then you can address it. Name it. Face it. Confront it. Suck the poison out. Shoo the monster from the den you’ve made it in your head.

I’m just no where near steady yet.