I'd like to address this, as it might help some others down the road.
I was 25 when I certified. I was a working computer professional (male). I watched underwater shows as a boy like many others and had a fascination with aquatic exploration. I passed the dives hop weekly, and one day decided, what the hell. I had the money and motivation, so I took the class.
Unfortunately for me, I was fairly new in my career. I got assigned a new job and had different responsibilities, and unfortnately spent many years being "on-call" for weekends meaning that I had to be within 2 response hours with a laptop. I've since moved on in my career where that is no longer an issue, but as I approach 40, my fitness has fallen away, and I have been reluctant to pull that dive gear out for a number of reasons. Family commitments, time commitments, etc. As I have recently spilt from my ex, I have a lot more time (and money) on my hands, and after thumbing through a dive magazine last month, I decided to pick the sport back up.
I realize most people who will post here will not share my life philosophies. I tend to follow a mix of Taoist and Zen philosophies. Believe it or not, DIR diving fits neatly into those philosophical principles. I will refrain from calling them religion because that is an issue open for debate. The ideals of causing no harm to the surroundings, the ideas of minimalism, the ideas of self-sufficiency, and self-awareness apply directly. These are principles I live by and I see the DIR style of preparation, and application as simply an extension of the principles by which I live the rest of my life.
I've spent dozens of hours reading about this style of diving, and the more I read, the more I am drawn to it. Unlike some, I am not a sheep. I eschew the "latest thing" and technology for technology's sake. I began college as a Mech. Engineering major. A discipline in which you are taught to question EVERYTHING and take nothing for granted. Nothing is proven until you can demonstrate it repeatedly.
As a person with only a few logged dives, I tend to try to absorb information from any number of sources. When a group of divers engages in risky overhead diving, and pushes the envelope as much as the WKPP divers did, clearly they gain knowlege beyond the casual diver, even the normal cave diver. The environment dictates procedures that produce repeatable results in order to stay alive. And I don't know about you, but when someone with 5k to 10k dives says, "Hey this is what worked for me, here is why, and here is how you can stay alive like I did", I make time to listen. I realize that in our sport, there are a number of people who know everything already. Those are not the people I wish to learn from. It's those who are seeking knowlege every time they hit the water that I want to associate myself with.
So my apologies if I seem a caricature to you Mr McGuinness. I suspect that I will not be a diver you'll choose to buddy with and that's ok. In the meantime, I will seek to become the very best diver I can, using the most expedient means available to me. A growing number of divers choose to do the same.
1000 years ago the earth was flat, 100 years ago man could not fly, 50 years ago man could not adequately explore the ocean, and 15 years ago no one breathed a 7ft hose. What is "right" and what is "true" is about where you stand in history.
