What is it with divers?

[Hank49]

Unlike many other sports, diving allows just about any human being to be proficient with little physical effort and socialization. Therefore diving becomes very important in their lives and allows them to feel as if they've accomplished something.

boo hoo. just when I thought my life was beginning to have meaning.......

 

[simbrooks]

I'm going to step on a few toes here, but I think the answer to the original question is a little different. Many of the divers I know are a little bit nonsocial and not very physically adept. Unlike many other sports, diving allows just about any human being to be proficient with little physical effort and socialization. Therefore diving becomes very important in their lives and allows them to feel as if they've accomplished something. The physical effort and embarrassing mistakes present in, say, whitewater kayaking, don't really exist, so as a sport it's pretty easy on the ego. I've seen people who *have* made those big diving mistakes more or less give it up.

Let the flaming begin

Firstly are you a glass is half-empty person? I am the opposite of that, but this isnt a flame, i appreciate your POV as a valid observation and wouldnt question the relevance, even if that POV doesnt wholy explain why i dive.
Some sports or activities are about competition, solo or as a "team", some are more about the socialising before or after the game, others are about getting away from it all - i like a bit of both, but my favourites happen to be those that take me out of the rat race and arent striving to "beat" others - although in a good few sports i know i can beat others, doesnt mean i embrace competativeness. Even as a relatively simple sport in essence, if you want to push it a little more and escape further, with training and working on things, you can achieve it and do things where other wouldnt want to go or do. I still enjoy my other outdoorsy things and group games of soccer and the like.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

Hemmingway wrote in "Men at War" that:

"Learning to suspend your imagination and live completely in the moment in the very second of the present minute with no before and no after is the greatest gift a soldier can acquire."

Hemmingway is talking about soldiers living in the moment to function and survive in combat, but the same underlying idea applies to diving.

One of the curses of modern western society is that it largley demands that we reflect on the past and plan for the future. The key benefit I derive from diving is that during a dive I am truly living "in the moment" and am never thinking about what happended last week at work or what I will have to do at the office on Monday morning. In this respect, diving becomes the ultimate release and the ultimate relaxation as it leaves no room for any other extraneous thought. That type of release is very seductive and addictive and is much easier to achieve on a consitent basis through diving than with meditation or street corner pharmacuticals.

 

[wstein]

It's the nitrogen.

I was going to say that!!!

Paul

 

[MyDiveLog]

And here's my thinking:

1) Diving is something you love or hate, without a lot of middle ground; something that is hard-wired into you. I was bit by "the bug" on my first experience underwater and have been addicted ever since. It's human nature to want to share something you find very fulfilling ... the same reason my first reaction to a beautiful sunset is to call my wife over to share it.
2) It's a sport that you never 'master,' and can always learn from. Everyone has different experiences, and it's fun to learn vicariously from them. Someone with 10 dives can have an experience that a diver with 1000 hasn't. Some of the best "never do this" lessons I've gotten have come from fellow divers that shared their experiences with me.
3) It's a sport that can strip away all pretence or arrogance ... who can be arrogant with snot draped across their face when they come out of the water? I think this makes it easier to form bonds with other divers, even ones you don't know. We have "regulars" at our dive club meetings that haven't dove in many years, but still consider themselves 'divers.'
4) The typical "esteem drivers" in the topside world are irrelevant, so it's more of a ... social leveler. The size of house you own, the job you have, etc. aren't important to diving. What matters is your skill and experience level.
5) Nondivers often see it as dangerous and divers therefore as a) brave or b) stupid. Either way, it tends to set divers apart.
6) There are a subset of folks that turn to diving as a mid-life thing, either as part of a midlife crisis or as an attempt to reclaim youth after a divorce. The sport becomes part of how they see themselves...sort of like how a car projects an image.

Enough of the amateur psychology hour!

 

[AnZal]

I support that which most others have said. Love the peace and quiet and lack of interference. Also love the exploring. It makes me feel like Christopher Columbus .... Or maybe more appropriately, Captain Nemo. Love the idea that there is still so much we do not know about the world under water.

 

[scubafool]

I can't be bothered to think about this, as I am currently busy thinking about how I might shoehorn a dive into the upcoming family time weekend. Even just one shallow, short one is better than a weekend spent dry.

Seriously, I don't understand it either. I just know that your observation is true, at least when it comes to divers who actually dive. We think it about diving almost constantly. I know that I personally think about it multiple times per hour throughout the day, then once I get home from work I spend most of the evening on the net reading about diving, or playing with gear, etc. Maybe there is a shrink out there who could help explain it?

 

[DEEPLOU]

"Many of the divers I know are a little bit nonsocial and not very physically adept. Unlike many other sports, diving allows just about any human being to be proficient with little physical effort and socialization"

To the contrary, I find most divers I have met to be highly social. While on the two hour boat ride out many divers are quiet (tired or hung over), on the two hour boat ride home it is a social event. Divers share the happenings of their dives that day as well as other "sea stories".
In between a stop at the dive shop usually involves a large social gathering of divers from all over. We discuss equipment, dive sites, great finds, plans for next dive and the list goes on for ever. A quick stop at the LDS usually takes about two hours.


"Some sports or activities are about competition, solo or as a "team", some are more about the socialising before or after the game, others are about getting away from it all "

Diving includes all these activities or aspects.

 

[jkennedy]

You keep diving till you find your piece of heaven. Mine is in Cayman Brac..............Jack the Caymaniac
I need some Brac Time..........

 

[ScubaTexan]

5) Nondivers often see it as dangerous and divers therefore as a) brave or b) stupid. Either way, it tends to set divers apart.

In that sense, would you consider scuba diving to be an extreme sport, like mogul skiing, skateboarding or street luge?